policy memo on public policy

Aim
The main aim of this policy memo is to present information about problem of waste utilization in Kazakhstan and propose some recommendations for solving this problem.

Executive summary
According to the Ministry of environmental protection on the territory of Kazakhstan has accumulated 22 billion tons of waste, including 96 million tons of solid household waste. Annually the volume of accumulated waste is growing 700 million tons. Its main mass without separation into components removed and disposed in open dumps. Thus, the production and consumption waste are one of the main environmental problems of the Republic of Kazakhstan.
Three proposed alternatives for reducing total amount of waste are presented in memo. Option 1 is based on current state policy of waste utilization (Status Quo). Option 2 is operating in introducing greening the economy with the use of economic instruments. Option 3 is based on implementation of the new integrated waste management system.
Five criteria have been used to identify and evaluate proposed options, namely, effectiveness, cost, political acceptability, administrative operability and robustness. Also Parties/Alternatives Matrix and Fishbone analysis were used in memo.
The analysis concluded that option 3 is the most favorable policy to implement. Though there are some operational costs and slight public resent in conducting this option, nevertheless Option 3 generates more effectiveness, have enough political acceptability and robustness, and achieves the overall goal of reducing the amount of waste.
Background
Human activity and any technological activity inevitably lead to the formation of domestic and industrial waste. These wastes, gradually accumulating, are becoming one of the major threats to environmental security of our country. Existing in the Republic of Kazakhstan of waste management system was developed during Soviet times and is mainly based on landfilling. According to the Ministry of environmental protection on the territory of Kazakhstan has accumulated 22 billion tons of waste. Annually the volume of accumulated waste is growing 700 million tons. According to the data of Agency of the Republic of Kazakhstan on statistics for the period from 2005 to 2010, the volume of produced municipal waste increased 1.8 times.
Figure 1. Amount of domestic waste in Kazakhstan, tons/year1

In Kazakhstan, 97% move waste on landfills and only about 3% are recycled. Storage in landfills is the only way of neutralization of waste. In modern economic conditions of limited financial resources landfills are the cheapest and, therefore, acceptable method of long-term and safe disposal of municipal waste. However, this is the most ineffective way to deal with waste management as landfills, occupying a huge territory is often fertile land and characterized by a high concentration of carbon materials (paper, polyethylene, plastic, wood, rubber), often burn and pollute the environment with exhaust gases. In addition, garbage dumps are a source of pollution of both surface and groundwater due to drainage landfills precipitation. Therefore the presence of firm-household waste in open dumps have an extremely negative impact on the environment and consequently on human.
The main causes of problems in the field of waste management:
The lack of well-functioning system of accounting of the waste generation and disposal by enterprises and controlling bodies;
Imperfection of the system of waste collection and removal from settlements;
Absence of equipped according to modern requirements of landfills and other waste disposal sites, including technological solutions for the environmentally safe disposal and recycling;
Much clutter household and production garbage, waste vehicles on territory of settlements, forests, floodplains of rivers and lakes, on areas near to industrial enterprises and the private sector;
Lack of active introduction of advanced technologies of waste recycling;
Mismatch of tariffs for removal of waste to real expenses;
Unauthorized dumping of garbage in the territory of settlements
Figure 2. Fishbone Analysis

Policy alternatives
Foreign analysts believe that the solution to the problem of waste processing depends on the following interrelated aspects. First, the volume of waste per capita is constantly growing; second, the waste are becoming more dangerous for human health and environment due to constant changes in their composition; thirdly, the population starts to resent the landfills, fourthly, a complicated management of waste: the price of processing is constantly increasing, therefore, the collection and recycling of solid waste in need of significant material investments; fifth, new technologies of waste processing. Economic policy of the state must provide an implementation with the least cost effective technical and environmental policy in the field of waste utilization. Capital investments in the solution of the problem of solid waste should be aimed at the most progressive model.
Three proposed alternatives have а goal to achieve following objectives: reducing human impact on the environment; return to the secondary use of recoverable materials; improving the culture of the population regarding the disposal of waste.
Option 1: Current state policy of waste utilization (Status Quo)
Policy of waste utilization is based on current waste management which aimed to collect all waste in landfills.
Option 2 is Greening the economy with the use of economic instruments. Among the influential economic instruments for promoting the transition to a green economy include: payment for environmental pollution (extending of responsibility spheres of the manufacturer); environmental taxes; environmental liability insurance.
Option 3 is Implementation of the new integrated waste management system. The main tasks of this system are to reduce the quantity of waste generated, their maximum involvement in the economic turnover and prevention of negative impact on environment. Methods of system of integrated waste management include: separate collection of waste; recycling of secondary resources, and waste storage on equipped landfills; the control sorting and biomechanical waste processing with the maximum utilization of secondary resources; thermal decomposition (burning) of ballast waste.

Decision criteria
Effectiveness. The policy must lessen the number of unauthorized dumps, reduce the amount of landfills as well as contribute to the opening of new waste treatment plants. Besides increase the cultural level of the population on this issue.
Cost. It is the second criterion to evaluate each alternative. The policy must achieve the objective at the lowest cost.
Political acceptability. The use of this criterion will help us to understand the relations between the key stakeholders on this problem, which are the government, commercial organizations, recycling plants and garbage carrying companies, as well as the population.
Administrative operability. Criterion which gives the opportunity to understand the implementation of this policy with available staff and employees (administrative system).
Robustness. The policy should provide consistency with related policies, and public opinion has been sought and considered.

Analysis of the options
The following matrices were used to support analysis of policy options:
Table 1. Possible options and Decision criteria (Criteria matrix)
Criteria
Alternatives

Current policy (Status quo)
Greening the economy with the use of economic instruments
Implementation of the waste management system
Effectiveness
Poor
Moderate
Excellent
Cost
Low operational cost with high environmental and social costs
Low environmental and social costs with high operational cost
Low environmental and social costs with high operational cost
Political acceptability
Currently acceptable by population, less acceptable by government
Acceptable by government, unacceptable by companies
Acceptable by government, less acceptable by population
Administrative operability
Sufficient
Insufficient, need to improve
Insufficient, need to improve
Robustness
Poor
Excellent
Excellent

Table 2. Parties/Alternatives Matrix
Parties
Alternatives

Current policy – Status quo
Greening the economy with the use of economic instruments
Implementation of the waste management system
Government
0
+
+
NGOs
-
0
+
Commercial organizations
+
-
0
General public
+
0
0
Recycling plants
-
0
+
Garbage carrying companies
-
0
+

Currently the most common way of neutralization of municipal waste in our country is remaining a storage and disposal of waste in landfills. There are advantages and disadvantages of existing methods of waste storage and disposal.

Table 3. Advantages and disadvantages of current waste utilization policy (waste storage in landfills).
Advantages
Disadvantages
Does not require continuous and major investments
The cost of struggle with the consequences of the disastrous impact of landfills, (environmental, health) considerably exceeds the cost of the construction of plants for waste processing
The place of waste disposal may not be updated for decades
Huge new territory are leaving for growing landfills. The number of landfills is increasing steadily.
Allow to get rid of large amounts of waste at one time
Decomposing in landfills of waste penetrate into the soil, thereby infecting it. Poisonous fumes pollute the air. All these consequences affect human health, interfere the metabolic processes in nature
The results of the devastating effects of landfills on the environment is not immediately visible
Devastating impacts of landfills on nature may be irreversible in the future
Table 4. Advantages and disadvantages of current waste utilization policy (waste disposal)
Advantages
Disadvantages
Allows forgetting about the problem of recycling waste.
Being in the soil waste poison it

Don't need a new huge territory
Underground landfills do not noticeable at first glance, but on the surface of the soil is poisoned and already plowed up, it is not suitable neither for the construction, nor for agriculture, nor for grazing. Moreover corrosive toxic substances evaporate from the surface of soil on landfills.
Does not require continuous and major investments
The cost of struggle with the consequences of the disastrous impact of landfills, (environmental, health) considerably exceeds the cost of the construction of plants for waste processing

The mentioned above comparative tables clearly show that all the presently existing and widely used in our country methods have a lot of shortcomings. Though cost of current policy is more acceptable for Government due to its low level, effectiveness of policy is quite poor, and it is necessary to keep in mind about environmental cost. Also there is little support from stakeholders, only general population strongly desire to maintain current policy. Overall it is seen that continue current policy is meaningless.
As to Option 2, UNEP2 defines a green economy as the economy, «which increases the welfare of people and ensure social justice and this substantially reduces the risks for the environment and its depletion. Among powerful economic incentive instruments include: payment for environmental pollution, environmental taxes, environmental liability insurance.
There is the Polluter Pays Principle in the world’s leading developed states, a principle where the polluting party pays for the impact caused to the environment. With respect to waste management, this generally refers to the requirement for a waste generator to pay for appropriate disposal of the unrecoverable material3. Also under this option, it is recommended to ensure concept of extended producer responsibility (EPR), which means to shift the responsibility dealing with waste from governments(and thus, taxpayers and society at large) to the entities producing it. In effect, it internalizes the cost of waste disposal into the cost of the product, theoretically meaning that the producers will improve the waste profile of their products, thus decreasing waste and increasing possibilities for reuse and recycling4. It is possible to overcome conflict with the increase of tax incentives, and keep the overall tax burden by redistribution of the tax burden from “taxes on labour” to “taxes on the consumption of energy and resources”. Environmental taxes are widely used in most developed countries. Increasing environmental taxes, Government reduces corporate tax and value added tax. This stimulates the value growth of human and natural capital.
According to this policy, the government should introduce mandatory environmental insurance, which is aimed at creation of an insurance protection in case of damage to insurers, insured and third parties (beneficiaries) due to sudden excess pollution of the environment (land, water or air basin).
However, as seen at Table 1 effectiveness of policy is moderate, and along with high cost of it implementing the use of Option 2 (Greening the economy with the use of economic instruments) causes some disputes. Table 2 shows that only Government takes benefit from policy, meanwhile commercial organizations have extremely opposite view on this Option.
Population growth, rapid urbanization and the increasing per capita waste generation turns waste problem in a global, requiring improvement of management system of waste. Option 3, New integrated waste management system, includes the organization of waste collection, disposal (including recycling, incineration, disposal etc), as well as measures to reduce the amount of waste. A basis of the concept of new integrated waste management is that the waste is composed of various components, which ideally should not be mixed and must dispose of separately from each other most economical and ecological ways. Among the other principles of integrated waste management include the following: all technologies and measures, including measures for waste reduction, recycling, incineration, landfilling should be developed in a complex, complementing each other; municipal waste management system should be developed with taking into account the specific local problems and solved by local resources; comprehensive approach to waste management is based on strategic adaptive planning; elaboration and implementation should continuously be accompanied by monitoring and evaluation; participation of the city authorities, as well as all population groups (producers of garbage) is a necessary element of policy.
When implementing new integrated waste management policy it is advisable to have an idea about the hierarchy of the events, included into it. Hierarchy consists of the priority activities for the reduction of waste, then the secondary reduction: the re-use and recycling, and in the last turn waste incineration or disposal, the occurrence of which could not be avoided and that can not be recycled. The economic aspect is connected with the need to pay for throwing of garbage and heavy fine to person/organization that did it without paying. Eventually such measure would bring a lot of primary concern from general public and commercial organizations (as shown in Table 2), however it is necessary part of development environmental awareness of population. The main provision of integrated waste management is that the product becomes garbage when it is mixed in the trash with other products. Therefore, the key management problem is efficient separation of waste on the components by the population and other waste producers, which is said as ‘Waste reduction’. This term involves planning and implementation of measures to reduce harmful properties of waste and increase the share of waste, which can be used as secondary raw materials. The next step is Recycling. Recycling is a process to change materials (waste) into new products to prevent waste of potentially useful materials, reduce the consumption of fresh raw materials, reduce energy usage, reduce air pollution (from incineration) and water pollution (from landfilling) by reducing the need for "conventional" waste disposal, and lower greenhouse gas emissions as compared to plastic production5. The last step is waste incineration and disposal at landfills. Incineration reduces the volume of waste entering landfills and can be used for production of electricity. Disposal at landfills continues to be necessary for the waste that can not be recyclable, combustible or burning with emission of toxic substances.
Despite the fact that Option 3 have huge high cost, effectiveness of such policy is the best compared to the other options. Having strong political acceptability will provide better performance of administrative personnel, which is now insufficient due to new system. As to stakeholders attitude on this policy, as it described at Table 2 Government and NGOs strongly support an idea of implementing policy. So overall it can be concluded that Option 3 is more favourable option to fulfill. Also there is a possibility of combining the last two policies.

Policy recommendations
Considering the above it is recommended to start implementing policy option 3 with gradually introducing policy option 2. it is worth noting that the cost of this policy would be huge, so there is an advice to establish plan with relevant budget at first. Also it is necessary to make several amendments to current legislation on tax, administrative violations and system of waste gathering.