IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/anr/reseco/v7y2015p109-125.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Economics of the International Trade of Waste

Author

Listed:
  • Derek Kellenberg

    (Economics Department, University of Montana, Missoula, Montana 59812)

Abstract

International trade in hazardous and nonhazardous waste and scrap products has been growing at an exceptional rate the past two decades. This review presents current data on the magnitude and trends regarding this growth and discusses the recent literature as it pertains to the economic incentives and drivers of international waste trade. Differences in environmental policy, taxes, disposal fees, and transport costs are important determinants across countries. However, the illegal nature of many types of hazardous waste also means that organized crime may play a role in some countries. Gaps in our understanding regarding microeconomic incentives as they relate to upstream and downstream recyclers and to the social welfare implications for wages, environmental quality, and human health are also discussed.

Suggested Citation

  • Derek Kellenberg, 2015. "The Economics of the International Trade of Waste," Annual Review of Resource Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 7(1), pages 109-125, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:anr:reseco:v:7:y:2015:p:109-125
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev-resource-100913-012639
    Download Restriction: Full text downloads are only available to subscribers. Visit the abstract page for more information.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Bowen Li & Antonio Alleyne & Zhaoyong Zhang & Yifei Mu, 2021. "Sustainability and Waste Imports in China: Pollution Haven or Resources Hunting," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(2), pages 1-21, January.
    2. Núñez-Rocha, Thaís & Martínez-Zarzoso, Inmaculada, 2019. "Are international environmental policies effective? The case of the Rotterdam and the Stockholm Conventions," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 81(C), pages 480-502.
    3. Bernardo Cantone & Alexander S. Antonarakis & Andreas Antoniades, 2021. "The great stagnation and environmental sustainability: A multidimensional perspective," Sustainable Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 29(3), pages 485-503, May.
    4. Changping Zhao & Xinli Qi & Jin Wang & Fengyang Du & Xiaolan Shi, 2022. "Predicting Possible New Links to Future Global Plastic Waste Trade Networks," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(8), pages 1-22, April.
    5. Xu, Helian & Feng, Lianyue & Wu, Gang & Zhang, Qi, 2021. "Evolution of structural properties and its determinants of global waste paper trade network based on temporal exponential random graph models," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 149(C).
    6. Unfried, Kerstin & Wang, Feicheng, 2024. "Importing air pollution? Evidence from China’s plastic waste imports," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 125(C).
    7. Jaime Vallés-Giménez & Anabel Zárate-Marco, 2021. "A Spatial Dynamic Model for Export Intensity of Hazardous Industrial Waste: The Incentive Effect of Regional Environmental Policies," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 80(4), pages 859-888, December.
    8. Liang Guo & W. D. Walls & Xiaoli Zheng, 2023. "Waste Import Bans and Environmental Quality: Evidence from China’s Electronic Waste Disposal Towns," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 85(1), pages 65-108, May.
    9. Unfried, Kerstin & Wang, Feicheng, 2022. "Importing Air Pollution? Evidence from China's Plastic Waste Imports," IZA Discussion Papers 15218, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    10. Bowen Li & Yifei Mu, 2024. "Impact of China’s National Sword Policy on Waste Import Margins: A Difference-in-Differences Approach," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 16(2), pages 1-20, January.
    11. Johann H. Martínez & Sergi Romero & José J. Ramasco & Ernesto Estrada, 2022. "The world-wide waste web," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 13(1), pages 1-13, December.
    12. Shi, Xinzheng & Zhang, Ming-ang, 2023. "Waste import and air pollution: Evidence from China's waste import ban," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 120(C).
    13. Chunsuttiwat,Pukitta & Coxhead,Ian, 2023. "Will you take my (s)crap? Waste havens in the global plastic waste trade," IDE Discussion Papers 895, Institute of Developing Economies, Japan External Trade Organization(JETRO).
    14. Besusparienė Erika & Bielskienė Monika, 2023. "Customs Valuation of Waste for Development of the Circular Economy," Management Theory and Studies for Rural Business and Infrastructure Development, Sciendo, vol. 45(3), pages 221-232, September.
    15. Lin, Chinho & Paengsri, Parinyakorn & Yang, Yiwen, 2023. "Impact of China’s National Sword Policy on waste import:A difference-in-differences approach," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 887-903.
    16. Sun, Meng, 2019. "The effect of border controls on waste imports: Evidence from China's Green Fence campaign," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 457-472.
    17. Adomas Balkevicius & Mark Sanctuary & Sigita Zvirblyte, 2020. "Fending off waste from the west: The impact of China's Operation Green Fence on the international waste trade," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 43(10), pages 2742-2761, October.
    18. Trang Tran & Hiromasa Goto & Takuma Matsuda, 2021. "The Impact of China’s Tightening Environmental Regulations on International Waste Trade and Logistics," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(2), pages 1-14, January.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Basel Convention; hazardous waste; scrap; environmental taxes; recycling; sustainability;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • F18 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Trade and Environment
    • F64 - International Economics - - Economic Impacts of Globalization - - - Environment
    • Q53 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Air Pollution; Water Pollution; Noise; Hazardous Waste; Solid Waste; Recycling

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:anr:reseco:v:7:y:2015:p:109-125. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: http://www.annualreviews.org (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.annualreviews.org .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.