Economía circular
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738
Políticas locales de clima y energía: teoría y práctica
14
PAY-AS-YOU-THROW (PAYT)
DESCRIPTION
The Pay-As-You-Throw, PAYT, is an
economic instrument that uses the “pollu-
ter pays” principle at the municipal level
by charging inhabitants according to the
amount of waste they send for third party
management. There are several systems
for the implementation of PAYT:
• Volume-based schemes (choice of
container size).
• Sack-based schemes (number of sacks
set out for collection).
• Weight-based schemes (the weight of
the waste collected in a given contai-
ner).
• Frequency-based schemes (the fre-
quency with which a container is set
out for collection – this approach can
be combined with volume- and weight-
based schemes).
Best practice is that weight-based
door-to-door collection, not only for re-
sidual waste but also for organic waste
and bulky waste. The successful imple-
mentation of an efficient PAYT system
requires a well-developed infrastructure
to collect different fractions of waste by
individual bins (paper/cardboard/board,
organic waste, eventually waste plastic
and organic waste), glass containers and
recycling facilities for ferrous metals,
non-ferrous metals, end-of-life electrical
and electronic equipment, refrigerators
and other white goods, waste plastic, was-
te polystyrene, waste wood, green cut-
tings, non-commercial construction and
demolition waste, waste tyres, printer car-
tridges, vegetable fat, textiles, shoes, cork,
CDs, etc. in order to offer the citizens a
comfortable way to get rid of materials
which they do not need anymore. The co-
llection system for all these waste frac-
tions is described in the BEMP on collec-
tion systems (see section 3.9). In addition,
awareness raising is also a key element for
well-performing PAYT systems; if the citi-
zens are aware and convinced of the sys-
tem, they will actively support it. About 10
municipalities in Germany apply the
weight-based system (e.g. counties of As-
chaffenburg, Schweinfurt, Garmisch-Par-
tenkirchen, Landsberg am Lech) as well as
municipalities in the Netherlands and in
France (City of Besançon). It is also prac-
tised in the US United States.
The pre-paid sack system is wides-
pread in Switzerland (and is applied in
Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark and
in few cases in Italy and Spain.
ENVIRONMENTAL BENEFIT
Due to PAYT, The amount of residual
waste significantly decreases and the
amount of recycled waste increases accor-
dingly – if the infrastructure to collect and
to process the recyclables is available and
efficient and the citizens have adequate
awareness and actively support the sys-
tem. Recycling rates of 70% and more,
up to 86% in case of weight-based sys-
tems are achieved.
CASE STUDIES
The County of Aschaffenburg imple-
ments a weight-based collection of resi-
dual waste, bio waste, and bulky waste, as
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