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This chapter explores the state's response to the waste crisis (see also McDonagh, Varley, & Shortall, 2009). The conceptual basis for key turning points in the state's waste management policy is located within the parameters of an EM approach. An outline of eco-modern and sustainable thinking is provided in the chapter, as the state's policy shift on waste, from a reliance on landfill to a strategy informed by the EU's waste hierarchy would provide many of the political opportunities for GSE, and their political allies, to exploit.

This paper examines how accounting concepts were utilised in domestic waste collection services in Ireland over the past two decades or so. In comparison to other former “free” services in the Irish context, the prevalence of accounting concepts has been greater and delivered a more successful outcome.

Drawing on the concepts of calculation, the “economic” and economization, events around domestic waste policy in Ireland are examined, and the increasing prevalence of concepts such as price, cost and profitability in these processes are a focal point. Publicly available documents such as government policy documents, parliamentary records and media reports are utilised to draw out these concepts. The period of analysis is 1996–2018.

The findings reveal the role of accounting concepts in the economization of domestic waste policy in Ireland. The result of the economization process was a fully privatised, profit-oriented, price-monitored system.

This research provides a broad view of accounting concepts in the management of domestic waste. It highlights how waste policy in Ireland travelled through instances of being political and economic over time. The research is limited by its use of secondary data.

This study highlights how accounting concepts were used in varying ways to bring about a satisfactory solution to domestic waste disposal in Ireland, namely the privatisation of waste services.

The purpose of this study is to identify and assess the waste management strategies that should be priorities for higher education institutions. The role of policy instruments (i.e. purchasing policies and recycling initiatives) in implementing sustainable zero-waste management programs at higher education institutions was investigated through comparison of American top-level and Western Kentucky University (WKU) benchmark universities.

Waste minimization-oriented policy instruments implemented at American top-level and WKU benchmark universities were analyzed through policy evaluation techniques. Digital surveys were distributed to sustainability coordinators at WKU benchmark and top-level universities. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with survey participants.

It is important to identify well-defined temporal periods with goals and allocated tasks for direct and indirect stakeholders. Time periods should include planning for readiness programs and infrastructural needs, along with performing comprehensive waste characterization studies. As the waste program matures, the creation of integrated waste management policies with specific responsibilities for all stakeholders and departments will be required.

The sampling of universities evaluated in this research is not representative of all universities in the USA or internationally, as they can vary widely. Yet, general waste management trends applicable to most universities can be gleaned from this research.

Widely varying zero-waste strategies are readily implemented at universities. A holistic review of successful waste management plans highlights key management approaches that should be included in all plans to ensure their success.

This study is one of the first of its kind to holistically evaluate policy factors influencing effective zero-waste management at higher education institutions.

This study aims to analyze reform path for waste management policy implementation. With reference to the Bayesian theory, this study provides a dynamic policy conversion method through various context settings. Furthermore, this study attempts to present an empirical research paradigm.

Matland’s “ambiguity-conflict model” is applied to explain the problems and reform paths of China’s waste management policy implementation. Integrating structure discovery and bibliometrics into qualitative analysis, this study used search data from literature search engine with specific themes to achieve structure learning of Bayesian network with key factors refined in waste management policy.

The results show that China’s waste management policy implementation belongs to symbolic implementation with high ambiguity and high conflict. Four basic conversion paths for the waste management policy are proposed, which are classified by length and stability. Then, it is possible to locate the factors, paths and types of policy implementation through involvement analysis with features of each path and each district of policy implementation. Public education holds direct but unstable impact on waste management. Economic incentives hold continuous but gradually diminishing impact. Perceived policy effectiveness plays the crucial role like a central bridge. Resident conditions have a positive impact, which could be enhanced through economic development of China. The impact of subjective norm on waste management is not significant. But subjective norm has the potential breakthrough for solving stagnation of waste classification policy. However, the impacts from each factor may change along with economy growth and technology innovation.

This study uses the “ambiguity-conflict model” to position China’s waste classification policy and suggests that structure discovery methods help understand feasible reform paths for reform policy. The integration of theoretical analysis and quantitative simulation can achieve a comprehensive analysis of problems and solutions in waste management policy implementation of China. Promotion and education, economic incentives, perceived value, behavior control, subjective norm, perceived policy effectiveness, informal waste recycling system and residential conditions are explored as key factors for waste classification policy implementation as a representative in waste management policy. The role of each key factor and features of each conversion paths are integrated to position reform paths in the ambiguity-conflict model. This work helps to explain the stagnation of waste management policy implementation from the perspective of dynamic structure evolution, and some specific suggestions to get out of stagnation are proposed.

A waste charging policy had been implemented in major Asian cities like Taipei and Seoul years ago. Hong Kong is not yet to charge household rubbish, which is one of the major municipal solid waste sources. Landfill places will be exhausted in a year or two in the city. The purpose of this study is to investigate the effectiveness of waste charging policies by exploring relationships among social norms, lifestyles, attitudes towards waste charging policy and pro-environmental behaviour.

Purposeful sampling was used in this study to recruit university students to take part in the survey. Purposeful sampling helps to make a “highly credible sample” (Gall et al., 2006, p.185). This study distributed questionnaires to respondents aged over 18 years. Among them, there were 404 valid questionnaires (35.6% male; 64.4% female) that were returned with a response rate of 53.9%.

It is found that attitude towards waste charging policies affects pro-environmental behaviour through lifestyles and social norms. Female respondents’ pro-environmental behaviours are affected by their lifestyles and social norms. But male respondents’ lifestyle is affected by their attitude towards policy. Attitude towards charging policy does not have an impact on young people's pro-environmental behaviours.

Social acceptance towards any environmental policy is a must for its final outcome. It is because attitude towards any environmental policy is a starting point to affect pro-environmental behaviours. Female respondents are more engaged in pro-environmental behaviour compared to male. Almost all big cities encourage the re-use, re-cycle and reduce of waste. Before designing and implementing relevant policy, stakeholder participation is important. The new environmental policy usually has stricter measures, such as heavier charge on municipal waste. Policymakers are advised to obtain solid arguments and data support to convince stakeholders.

In the transition towards circular economy and sustainable development, effective implementation of extended producer responsibility (EPR) legislation is crucial to prevent plastic-waste generation and promote recycling activities. The purpose of this study is to undertake a qualitative analysis to examine recent EPR policy changes, implementation, barriers and enabling conditions.

In-depth interviews and group discussions with key stakeholders were undertaken to derive the barriers and facilitators of EPR implementation. Based on opinions and insights from a wide range of participants, this study identified a number of key issues faced by various parties in implementing EPR in India.

Stakeholders agree on a lack of clarity on various policy aspects, such as mandatory approval of urban local bodies, registration of recyclers/waste processors and consistency in the definition of technical terms. This paper provides useful policy inputs to address these challenges and to develop comprehensive EPR policy systems. More consultation and deliberation across various stakeholders is required to ensure the policies are effective.

India’s plastic-waste generation has increased at a rapid pace over the past five years and is expected to grow at a higher rate in the future. This research provides implications for policymakers to formulate coherent policies that align with the interests of brand owners and recyclers. Clear policy suggestions and improvements for effective plastic-waste management in India are also outlined.

This paper, based on a qualitative approach, contributes to research on plastic-waste management by integrating the perspectives of all EPR-policy stakeholders in India.

Sustainable recycling activities in higher education institutions (HEIs) are crucial as it serves as a common benchmark to a community that is socially and environmentally responsible. This chapter presents a suitable case study of HEIs in Malaysia reporting on recycling rate, monitoring the recycling patterns, and matching the significant recycling policy in the HEIs. Therefore, four HEIs including Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM), Universiti Malaya (UM), Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) and Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM) were selected as the suitable case studies to examine the practices of recycling activities. These four HEIs are Malaysian research universities that are ranked in the top 300 in the UI Green Metric World University Rankings. Several findings and previous works were reviewed; further steps to set a recycling target were identified and served as a guidance of the standard recycling rate. Results showed the selected HEIs reflected the low percentage of recycling rate in the range of 0.03–29.26%, depending on its practices and policy. Three phases of planning have been structured to target the recycling rate at HEIs in Malaysia with the First Plan (2025), Second Plan (2035) and Third Plan (2040) towards the recycling rates of 20%, 30% and 40%, respectively. The recommendations for the HEIs formulate recycling policies and recycling rates, and for waste management, academia and research centres to play a more active role in increasing the efficiency of recycling activities for a positive impact on the recycling rate in HEIs.

The purpose of this paper is to examine empirical studies on public-private partnerships (PPPs) and solid waste management (SWM) in Ghana and India to synthesize the “crucial lessons” for urban managers and policy makers in developing countries.

A systematic review of empirical studies was carried out, the search process comprised four categories of keywords combined differently across three main search engines in order to obtain a pool of more relevant literature on the study. Sorting for relevance was done at various levels; retrospective content analysis of relevant empirical studies on PPP and SWM in Ghana and India was subsequently carried out to draw lessons and policy suggestions.

PPPs have mainly been impressive in coverage of waste collection in the Ghanaian context, whilst in India, emphasis has been on injection of technology and effectiveness into SWM. It is also observed that in both cases the PPP processes have lacked adequate openness, transparency and sufficient stakeholder engagement. In the Ghana cases, mostly, urban authorities hardly pay attention to details in the partnership deed and also ignore monitoring of private partners. Poorly performed PPPs do occur when one of the partners relent on his role which could have a cascading effect on other actors.

Whilst PPP is a strong candidate to address the SWM challenges of urban centers in developing countries, this does not necessarily come about by joining the bandwagon. Merely entering into a partnership deed with private waste management companies without paying due attention to details of the contract will usher urban managers into a state of schizophrenia. The paper presents five key lessons to inform policy and practice.

The paper draws lessons from multiple cases of PPPs in Ghana and India by synchronizing lessons adaptable to city authorities and policy makers in developing countries.

A systems perspective of waste management allows an integrated approach not only to the five basic functional elements of waste management itself (generation, reduction, collection, recycling, disposal), but to the problems arising at the interfaces with the management of energy, nature conservation, environmental protection, economic factors like unemployment and productivity, etc. This monograph separately describes present practices and the problems to be solved in each of the functional areas of waste management and at the important interfaces. Strategies for more efficient control are then proposed from a systems perspective. Systematic and objective means of solving problems become possible leading to optimal management and a positive contribution to economic development, not least through resource conservation. India is the particular context within which waste generation and management are discussed. In considering waste disposal techniques, special attention is given to sewage and radioactive wastes.

In the context of the environmental impacts caused due to the increasing volumes of discarded technologies (e-Waste), this paper aims to critically evaluate whether environmental policy, the Waste of Electronic and Electrical Equipment (WEEE) legislation in particular can contribute to a shift in logic from neoliberal growth to green growth.

Drawing upon empirical research, this paper shows how three computer waste organisations evolve through the imbrication of pre- and post-policy logics in collaborative and heterogeneous ways to create an “economy of greening”.

Extending the concept of a fractionated trading zone, this paper demonstrates the heterogeneous ways in which computer sourcing is imbricated, providing a taxonomy of imbricating logics. It is argued that what is shared in a fractionated trading zone is a diversity of imbrications. This provides for a nuanced perspective on policy and the management of waste, showing how post-WEEE logics become the condition to continue to pursue pre-WEEE logics.

This research focuses on three organisations and the EU 2003 and UK 2006 versions of the WEEE legislation.

The research findings have important implications, more specifically, for how e-Waste policy is enacted as an “economy of greening” to constitute managerial and organisational adaptation needed to create a sustainable economy and society.

This paper’s contribution is threefold. First, theoretically, the literature on trading zones and imbrication is extended by considering how they can complement one another. Our focus on imbrication is a “zooming in” on the managerial and organisational implications and dynamics of a trading zone. Second, the literature on imbrication is added to by identifying a diverse range of imbricating logics that can be used to discern a more nuanced understanding of the translated effects of policy. Last, these ideas are ground in a relevant empirical context – that of e-waste management in the UK, providing a deeper knowledge, over time, of specific actors’ translations of policy into organisational practices.