Evaluating policy changes on council waste generation and diversion: Evidence from South Australia

Australia, like most countries worldwide, faces increasing issues with burgeoning waste generation and its appropriate disposal. Hence, effective policies and programmes are needed to change household waste generation and recycling behaviour, thereby reducing waste into landfill. To date, however, there has been little academic research on the potential effects of various policies on waste generation. We employ a rare data set and the fixed-effects linear regression model with autoregressive disturbances to investigate how a variety of public policies (namely education campaigns, roll-out of food diversion systems and provision of food caddies) influence monthly waste generation and diversion in Adelaide, South Australia, from 2006 to 2020. The results show that the introduction of food waste caddies and diversion systems was associated with increased diversion rates, saving local councils the gross equivalent of AUD$4.67 million in reduced solid waste landfill levies. However, education campaigns regarding food waste and recycling alone were found to have no significant association with reduced waste or increased recycling.