Evaluation of optional fee structures for solid waste management in China

Abstract

A municipal solid waste fee has become an important means for the implementation of the waste management rendered by the government all around the world. Based on the ecological environmental compensation theory, this article constructs an analytical framework of waste charging from the perspective of public policy evaluation, to carry on the comprehensive comparison and analysis to the operability, feasibility, validity, rationality, and universality of the two modes of waste charging: Ration charge and unit-pricing modes. The results indicate that in the cities with large amounts of waste production, long time of waste charging, and high disposal rate, pilot projects should be carried out; and the government needs to improve the construction of associated laws and regulations.

Keywords

Municipal solid waste waste charging ration charge mode unit-pricing mode comparative study

Introduction

With the rapid development of China’s economy and the speeding up of urbanisation, urban waste emissions are also increasing, which has brought great threat to the urban environment, the daily life of residents and the sustainable development of the city. For example, the data shows that in 2015, the domestic waste delivering quantity of China totalled 19.14 million tonnes, and the waste disposal capacity was 18.01 million tonnes (National Bureau of Statistics of China, 2016). In 2005, the annual quantity of domestic waste generation has reached 200 million tonnes with a 10% increasing rate, and the stock of waste has reached 6.6 billion tonnes, which means that nearly two-thirds of the cities are surrounded by the waste (Hou, 2005). Municipal solid waste emissions cause a decline of the quality of the environment, and adverse impact to the human health. As an example of external diseconomy, charging fees for domestic waste treatment could be effective to internalise the external diseconomy (Li, 2005).

The research on the charging modes of municipal solid waste mainly focused on the following aspects: The validity of unit pricing (Folz and Giles, 2002; Jenkins, 1993; Takahara et al., 2003; Ohmiya et al., 2006; Wertz, 1976), the establishment of charging model (Chen, 1996; Hogg, 2002; Sakai et al., 2008; Stavins, 1993), implementation effect assessment (Callan and Thomas, 1997; Dijkgraaf and Gradus, 2004; Fullerton and Kinnaman, 1996; Miranda et al., 1994; Skumatz, 2006). We found that most literature focused on developed countries, and few focused on developing countries, such as China.

In China, the increasing amount of waste disposal directly leads to the shortage of waste disposal facilities and the rising cost of waste management. At present, the urban household waste management is mainly financially supported by government, which is a heavy financial burden to different levels of government. Although waste charging policies exist, it could be difficult to implement for the reasons such as the low standard of waste charging and the low collection rate of waste fee. The scientific and reasonable change of the charging mode of waste can transform the payment of municipal solid waste into a strong economic signal, which can effectively promote urban residents to adjust their behaviour (Stavins, 1993). Therefore, it is very important to learn lessons from international experiences and design an effective method of waste charging consistent with China’s circumstances.

This article mainly puts forward an analysis framework of urban domestic waste charging from the perspective of policy evaluation. Under the guidance of this framework, we compare the operability, feasibility, validity, rationality and universality of the waste charging modes, which have been widely used in practices of the urban domestic waste charging. This article aims to solve the increasingly challenging pollution problem of municipal solid waste and provide a theoretical basis and practice guidance to the selection and implementation of the waste charging policy, especially to the selected Chinese cities where pilot projects involving a unit-pricing mode can be operated.

Methodology

Analytical framework

The analytical framework is built around the theory of environment compensation payment policy. This analytical framework distinguishes nine dimensions for analysis of urban domestic waste charging policies: Industrialisation stage of waste disposal, the basis of the fee collection, the shortcomings of the fee collection, the applicability of policy, the rationality of policy, the difficulty in administrative management, the effect of waste reduction, the effect of fiscal expenditure reduction and the improvement degree of the resident’s environmental awareness (see Table 1).

Table.1.

Framework of waste charging.

Dimensions for analysis	Charging modes
Dimensions for analysis	Ration charge mode	Unit-pricing mode
Industrialisation stage of waste disposal	Preliminary industrialisation	Complete industrialisation
The basis of the fee collection	National or local policies	Actual waste emissions
The shortcomings of the fee collection	Low-level waste fee and collection rate	Random dumping; self-handling
The applicability of policy	Very convenient	Generally convenient
The rationality of policy	Generally fair	Fair
The difficulty in administrative management	Small	Large
The effectiveness of waste reduction	Ineffective	Significantly effective
The effect of fiscal expenditure reduction	No significant reduction	Significant reduction
The improvement degree of the resident’s environmental awareness	No significant improvement	Significant improvement

Residential households are the main payers of municipal solid waste charging. According to the international experiences, there are two main types of urban waste charging modes: Ration charge mode and the unit-pricing mode.

The industrialisation stage of waste disposal is the starting point of the determination of the various related analysis indicators, which is the basic indicator of selecting reasonable and effective waste charging mode. The industrialisation stage of waste disposal can be divided into two stages: Preliminary industrialisation and complete industrialisation. Different stages of industrialisation need different waste charging mode and different amount of funding support.

The collection fee is the basis of setting the standard of waste fee, which might impact the residents’ behaviour of waste emission, and influences the effects of waste reduction brought by different waste charging modes. The basis of the fee collection includes: National and local policies, and the actual waste emissions of the residents. The national and local policies are established considering the residents’ bearing capacity, the operation costs of waste disposal facilities, the total amount of waste emissions in the fee charging area and the protectionist policies for the disadvantaged groups. Excessive consideration of the residents’ capacity may cause the waste disposal fee to not meet the cost of waste disposal, bringing financial burdens to the government. On the other hand, excessive consideration of the total amount of waste emissions in the fee charging area may not be fair to the residents who have little waste emission, and also have no positive effect on the waste reduction. Applicable and easy-implementable waste charging mode could effectively control and reduce the cost of waste disposal, thus improving the capacity and the efficiency of the waste disposal.

The rationality of policy should be fully considered during the formulation and implementation of the waste charging policy. The rationality of the waste charging mode reflects on whether it gives residents equal expenses and equal opportunities. Equal expenses imply that the waste fee charged to residents should depend on the waste disposal services they receive; the increase of the waste fee should be owing to the increase of the residents’ waste emissions; if the amount of waste discharged by the residents is similar, the amount of waste will be generally the same (Allen, 2009). Equal opportunities refer to the equal consideration of densely or sparsely populated communities, empty houses and the vulnerable groups when implementing waste fee policies.

Waste reduction would be the ultimate goal of waste fee collection. The municipal solid waste fee charging policy is an effective environmental policy, and the waste fee charging policy should achieve the goals of encouraging waste reduction and recycling, and building a recycling-oriented society.

The standards of waste fee are too low in China; thus, waste disposal companies have been in policy-related losses for a long time and owing to a problem of capital accumulation. This leads waste disposal companies to a difficult situation, where they are unable to expand production capacity and adopt new processing technology to meet the growing demand of society, despite that the normal operations are already difficult. The waste disposal is inseparable from the government’s strong support, and it has long brought the problem of funding shortage to the government, which is not conducive to the long-term stability of the waste disposal industry. Therefore, it is necessary to select a scientific and reasonable waste charging method to provide financial support to the normal operations of waste disposal and relieve the pressure of the government funds.

The resident’s environmental awareness is directly related to the implementation effectiveness of the waste charging policy. Residents who have a low degree of environmental consciousness may lack the environmental responsibility. The implementation of the waste charging policy may cause some problems, such as the low collection rate of the waste fees or the self-handling behaviour of the residents. Therefore, choosing the charging mode of municipal solid waste is a necessary way of coordinating economic development and environmental protection, improving the residents’ environmental awareness, strengthening the public participation and thus promoting the construction of resource saving and an environment-friendly society.

Selection of the waste charging modes

Based on the framework of waste charging (Table 1), two types of waste charging modes were selected for comparison: Ration charge mode and unit-pricing mode.

Comparing the waste charging modes

Ration charge mode

The ration charge mode is to charge the waste fee in a fixed price, where the amount of waste fee is not affected by the amount of waste emissions (Ren, 2013). The ration charge mode has a certain practical basis in China, which is also the main form of China’s waste fee charging policy and is suitable for application in the early stage of waste disposal industrialisation. The primary goal of the ration charge mode is to raise funds for the facility construction and operations of waste collection, transport and disposal, thus implementing the harmless treatment of the urban municipal solid waste.

The main reasons that most cities choose to use the ration charge mode for waste fee charging in China consist of four aspects: First, it can effectively increase the income from the waste fee collection. Second, it has no requirement on the size of the city. Third, the associated management and implementation are relatively easy. Fourth, it is the historical inertia of the waste fee charging system.

Adopting the ration charge mode of urban municipal solid waste brings some problems. First, under a planned economy mode, the environmental sanitation industry has been regarded as social public utilities for a long time; thus the government has implemented a low-price policy for the waste fee pricing under the excessive consideration of the residents’ capacity. The pricing of the waste fee did not properly take the market as the leading factor; therefore, the basic price is not affected by the supply–demand relations and cost changes in the market.

Most cities in China that use the ration charge mode to collect waste fees are mostly using the methods of charging by families. Most of the urban residents in China charge about 3–10 yuan per month for the waste fee. It was estimated that for each tonne of municipal solid waste from the output to transport to the landfill, the total operating cost is about 158 yuan; but the related departments only can get 70–80 yuan from the waste fee charged by the residents. It is clear that the standard of the waste fee cannot meet the actual cost of waste disposal (Tan et al., 2008).

In particular, in recent years, the increasing amount of waste disposal, and the implementation of resource classification and waste collection programmes bring an increasingly high rate of waste disposal fees. Under such circumstances, it is difficult for the sanitation industry to fundamentally improve its economic efficiency and contribute to the creation of good social benefits by relying on state financial subsidies (Du et al., 2006).

Second, waste reduction and recycling are weak. The ration charge mode follows the income-first principle, not the priority of circular economy operation. The charging mode will practise the principle of ‘recycling’, even if all the incomes are used for effective recirculation of waste; however, as the municipal solid waste continued to increase, the waste disposal may enter into a vicious cycle (Ding, 2007).

Third, it may not be effective to improve the environmental consciousness of urban residents. The standard of the ration charge mode does not link to the waste emissions of the residents; as a result, it may not effectively restrict the residents for reducing the generation of waste and cannot completely control the waste pollution.

Unit-pricing mode

The charging standard of the unit-pricing mode is based on the volume and the quality of waste emissions. Contrasting to the ration charge mode, the amount of the fee of waste charging and discharging directly affects its income; so the income of the unit-pricing mode varies.

The unit-pricing mode is adopted by most developed countries and would be suitable for application in the mature period of waste treatment industrialisation. The main reason is that the unit-pricing mode requires certain conditions of implementation, such as a smooth recycling system, perfect supervision mechanism and a high environmental consciousness of urban residents. The main purpose of the unit-pricing mode is the reduction and recycling of wastes.

There are six reasons for the selection of the unit-pricing mode. First, it has a good effect on reducing government spending. Because waste fee is charged by the amount of waste discharge, people will consciously reduce the amount of waste emissions; thus, the cost of waste disposal funded by the government will naturally decrease, and the fiscal expenditure will also be reduced (Ma et al., 2011). Second, it has a significant effect on the reduction of waste emissions and the utilisation of resources (Jenkins, 1993). According to the overseas experience, the reduction of waste emissions of the residents is reduced to about 73% after the implementation of unit-pricing (Tietenberg, 2000). Third, it effectively promotes cleaner production. After implementing the unit pricing, for reducing the waste produced, the residents will buy the goods with relatively less waste output, which leads to the increase of the consumption rate and the consumption quantity of the green commodity. Over time, producers will gradually improve their production processes, and produce green commodity and promote cleaner production. Fourth, it improves the national economic structure. The marginal revenue of the unit pricing promotes the green consumption and precision consumption, improves the level of consumption, promotes the change of consumption pattern, as well as provides an opportunity to the change of production pattern, affects green commodity, precision commodity and the relevant departments. Thus, the adjustment of the national economic structure will be promoted and will develop to a higher level. Fifth, it effectively improves the national economic benefits. The effect of waste reduction of the unit-pricing mode is clear; so that the human, material and financial resources occupied by waste disposal would be reduced. In addition, the improved national economy structure also releases people from the old job and create new more advanced, efficient production methods, improving the efficiency of the national economy (Zhang et al., 2005a). Sixth, it effectively improves the residents’ environmental awareness. As the waste fee is charged according to the actual waste emissions, the cost distribution of waste disposal is fairer, which benefits the improvement of waste reduction awareness of urban residents.

Although the implementation of the unit-pricing has advantages on waste reduction, few cities started using the unit-pricing method for the waste fee collection owing to the following reasons: First, the unit-pricing mode demands highly specialised facilities for supporting waste collection, which is more difficult than the operations of the ration charge mode. Second, after implementing the unit-pricing charging mode, the capital income will be reduced with the improvement of waste reduction, making the municipal budget difficult. Third, because of the high population density in China, most urban residents live in detached wing-type residences, which requires a large amount of supervising manpower for the implementation of unit-pricing and increases the total costs of waste disposal. Fourth, it is difficult to accurately calculate the amount of waste produced by each unit.

Municipal solid waste using a unit-pricing mode also faces some risks. First, the more effective the waste reduction of the implementation of unit-pricing, the less charging fees would be collected; and the income reduction would bring difficulties to the budget of municipal construction (Qiu, 2005). Second, experiences from some countries show that some waste emitters may not (fully) pay the waste fees, which leads to illegal disposal of wastes, piled up at random phenomenon and serious environmental pollution. Third, when the amount of waste that residents dispose by themselves or the amount of random dumping is too large, the waste disposal facilities may exceed their designed capacity of options, which would cause the loss during operation of the waste management department. This is also not conducive to the mobilisation of relevant enterprises’ enthusiasm for waste disposal activities and the recovery of national investment (Jiang, 2001).

Comparing the assessment standard of policies

According to the public policy assessment theory (Deng, 2002; Lin, 1982; Vickers, 1995), the policy assessment needs to be measured in terms of the pros and cons of public policy, namely the policy evaluation criteria. The policy evaluation criterion is the first premise and logical starting point of public policy assessment. The policy evaluation criteria can be broadly divided into five categories: Operability, feasibility, validity, rationality and universality.

From the perspective of policy evaluation, this study references the analysis framework of waste charging, and compares the ration charge mode and unit-pricing mode with the five indicators: Operability, feasibility, validity, rationality and universality. Among them, the operability of policy is mainly compared with three aspects: Basis, subject and method of the waste fee charging. The feasibility of policy includes two aspects: The economic and social feasibilities. The validity of the policy is mainly measured by the waste reduction and recycling of different charging modes. Policy rationality is the indicator of ‘Pay as you throw’. The universality of policy includes three aspects: The urban waste production, the development of the industrialisation stage of urban waste management and the environmental consciousness of urban residents.

Comparing operability

The waste fee charging basis of the ration charge mode includes: By family, by population and by the dwelling area (Chen, 2009). The waste fee charging basis of the unit-pricing mode mainly includes: Measured by trash cans, measured by weight, measured in garbage bags and the use of garbage disposal coupons (adhesive labels) (Dijkgraaf and Gradus, 2004). With ration charge mode, the municipal sanitation department is responsible for collect waste fees from residents; but usually the waste fee is collected by the property company and the neighbourhood committee, because the municipal sanitation department consumes a lot of manpower and material resources in the process of waste fee collection (Li, 2002). With unit-pricing mode, the utility charging system is responsible for collecting waste fees from residents, and then transfer the collected funds to the municipal sanitation department. It can effectively avoid the circumstances where the waste fee charging subject has the conflict of interests, which can effectively improve the efficiency of waste fee collection.

The ration charge mode is the use of entrusted collection and the door-to-door collection. The unit-pricing mode is the use of entrusted collection and the combined collection of water and electricity bills. The door-to-door collection means that service providers go from house to house collecting the waste fee from city dwellers. Its advantage is easy implementation; but its disadvantages include the waste of human resources, the high cost of waste collection, the inconvenience of management and the low waste fee collection rate. The combined collection of water and electricity bills means that the waste fee is included in the fee collection of water or electricity. Its advantage is simplicity and efficiency, but its disadvantage is that it is not according to the principle of fairness and justice, because the water (or electricity) consumption may have a low correlation with the amount of waste produced. By comparing the waste fee charging methods of the above two kinds, we find that the combined collection of water and electricity bills are more efficient than the door-to-door collection (Yang et al., 2010). This is owing to the method of the combined collection of water and electricity bills being binding and mandatory, it is tied up with the waste fee with other payment projects. Thus, on the one hand, the labour cost is greatly reduced and the high rate of collection is guaranteed; on the other hand, the charging items that make the waste fee will be noticed by the residents in the payment of another cost, which will promote the residents to form the consciousness of waste reduction.

Comparing feasibility

The high cost of waste collection, transportation and disposal will make it more difficult to use the waste fee to compensate the cost of waste disposal. The costs involved in the process of waste management include: Waste collection cost, waste transportation cost and waste disposal cost. The cost of the waste agency to administer the fee collection process is part of the waste collection cost. For the cost of the waste agency to administer the fee collection process, implementing the ration charge mode only requires knowing the total amount of waste produced, the unit cost of waste disposal and the quantity of households for calculating the uniform charging standard. By contrast, during implementing the unit-pricing mode, it is necessary to measure the amount of actual waste produced per household to charge the waste fee. In the face of tens of thousands of households in the city, the waste collection cost under the unit-pricing mode is much higher than the ration charge mode. Because the ration charge mode cannot effectively reduce the waste emissions, and with the increasing amount of waste emissions, the corresponding disposal costs also increase. Charging the waste fee in a unified and fixed quota cannot compensate the increasing costs of waste disposal. While the unit-pricing mode followed the Pay-as-you-throw (PAYT) principle, it effectively reduces the amount of waste that needs to be processed. The supporting policy encourages the residents to implement waste classification (Ohmiya et al., 2006; Takahara et al., 2003). The cost of classified waste disposal is much smaller than is not classified; thus, the cost of waste disposal under the unit-pricing mode is lower than that of the ration charge mode. However, the unit-pricing mode may bring some random dumping behaviour of residents, which may increase the difficulty of waste collection, thus increasing the total cost of waste disposal.

Studies (Gellynck and Verhelst, 2007; Skumatz, 1996; Tan et al., 2008) showed that if the waste fee exceeds the capacity of the residents, the corresponding waste fee charging mode will be difficult to implement. Therefore, it is necessary to consider the proportion of waste fee in the household income (Chen et al., 2002). In the developed countries implementing unit-pricing (e.g. Switzerland, Austria, Germany), the annual expenditure on waste accounts for only 0.3% of household income (Zhang et al., 2005b), which suggests that the unit-pricing mode is economically affordable. However, because the residents of China are accustomed to the low waste fee under the ration charge mode, the increase of the waste fee could lead to a psychological burden to the residents. Therefore, in China, the residents’ ability to bear the cost of the waste fee is largely a matter of psychological rather than economic affordability. Although the mental capacity of the residents may not be measured explicitly after the change of waste fee, the government should not ignore its role played in the reform of the waste fee charging mode, which concerns the attitude and active participation of urban residents in the reform of the waste fee charging mode.

Comparing validity

Sometimes the total amount of waste fee charged by the ration charge mode and the unit-pricing mode may be similar. However, owing to the differences in the degree of connecting with the behaviour of waste emission, their differences of the waste reduction and recycling could also be significant.

After implementing the ration charge mode, there is no significant reduction in the amount of waste emissions; and the implementation of the unit-pricing mode can adjust the waste discharge behaviour of city dweller on a large scale, thus affecting the waste emissions and the waste recycling rate (Wertz, 1976). This is because that the waste collection is designed to make the environmental capacity of waste disposal a scarce resource. As long as the ration charge mode is based on whether the residents are responsible for the waste discharge, not the specific details of the waste emissions, it directly caused that the environmental capacity usage has no direct connection with the benefit, making it a kind of incomplete scarce resource. Once a fee has been paid to show scarcity, the use of such resources would be unrestrained (Qiu, 2005).

Comparing rationality

The rationality of the waste fee charging system is the essential requirement of the socialist system in China, which is to realise and maintain social fairness and justice. The similarity between the ration charge mode and the unit-pricing mode is that both reflect the concept of ‘polluter pays’. However, the unit-pricing mode is fairer than the ration charge mode. This is because the ration charge mode considers the total amount of waste emissions and considers the ability of low-income people too much, without considering the specific waste production and types of waste. This qualitative instead of quantitative method has resulted in zero cost of the increase in residents’ waste production, leading to a poor level of rationality. However, the unit-pricing mode takes into account the factors, such as the specific waste discharge, the type of waste and the level of service provided by the government, without taking into account the economic and social status of residents, in order to ensure that every stakeholders in the municipal waste charging system is responsible for the waste generated by themselves, which guarantees that they pay the cost of waste collection at the same base rates, with the waste fee adjustment when demand changes. It reflects the difference of the pay for the waste fee of the urban residents, which shows the rationality. However, since the unit-pricing mode may lead to illegal landfill and incineration, it will not be fair to law-abiding citizens (Chen, 2009).

Comparing universality

The different implementation conditions, the pros and cons of the ration charge mode and unit-pricing mode make them applicable to the different cities and different industrialisation stage of waste disposal. In particular, for cities with relatively few urban waste production, the implementation of the ration charge mode is more efficient for the society. Because the waste fee under the ration charge mode does not depend on the amount of the waste emissions, people may not want to throw the wrong way, such as random dumping to reduce waste emissions. Therefore, the implementation of the ration charge mode does not specifically require the urban residents’ environmental consciousness.

The key limiting factor of the industrialisation of waste disposal is the shortage of funds. The average pricing mode has no significant effect on the waste reduction. The amount of waste collection is relatively stable and the total amount of waste fee collected is also basically unchanged, which can provide relatively stable funding support for the waste industry to quickly build up the waste disposal industry and reverse the shortage of funds. Meanwhile the waste disposal industry has a certain scale of economy, which means that as the amount of waste disposal increases, the efficiency of its waste disposal industry increases. The amount of waste discharge of the average pricing mode is significantly higher than other charging modes. Therefore, the ration charge mode is more suitable for the formation and initial stage of the waste disposal industry.

While the unit-pricing mode applies to the cities with large waste production, the higher costs in the cities with large waste production can be offset by the benefits of less waste. For the cities with stronger environmental awareness, it is more appropriate to carry out the unit-pricing mode. With a strong environmental awareness, residents would be willing to pay the waste collection fee rather than dumping or burning. By contrast, poor environmental awareness of residents could lead to the situation where more waste is being dumped or self-handled.

In particular, for the cities that have no or low of waste charging, without transitional charging, direct implementation of the unit-pricing would make the phenomenon of random dumping worse; and the cost of collecting the waste of random dumping would be much higher than the cost of general waste disposal. The situation that the waste fee under the implementation of the unit-pricing mode is unstable and has a decreasing tendency makes it impossible to provide a stable financial support for the waste disposal industry. Therefore, the unit-pricing mode is more applicable to the mature stage of the waste disposal industry.

Conclusions and recommendations

This article demonstrates that both the ration charge mode and unit-pricing mode have their own pros and cons. When choosing the waste charging mode, comprehensive consideration should be taken according to the economic development status, the industrialisation stage of waste disposal and the degree of residents’ environmental consciousness.

This article is based on the policy evaluation theory and the analysis framework of waste charging, comparing the ration charge mode and unit-pricing mode with five indicators: Operability, feasibility, validity, rationality and universality. Our results show, first, it is economically feasible for the cities where the residents are highly environmental conscious, to implement the unit-pricing mode. For the cities where the residents have weak environmental awareness, the ration charge mode would be economically feasible. Considering the residents’ economic capacity and psychological endurance capacity, the ration charge mode would be significantly better than the unit-pricing mode. Second, the unit-pricing mode considers the specific waste production and types of waste, which makes it fairer than the ration charge mode. Third, for the cities with relatively few urban waste production and the formation and initial stage of the waste disposal industry, the implementation of the ration charge mode is more efficient; and for the cities with large waste production and a mature stage of the waste disposal industry, it is more appropriate to carry out the unit-pricing mode. To summarise, we conclude the unit-pricing waste fee charging mode is more scientific and reasonable than the ration charge mode.

However, the implementation of the unit-pricing charging mode requires a smooth recycling system, sophisticated supervision mechanism and a higher environment awareness of residents. According to China’s national conditions, the pilot project should be carried out first in cities with large amount of waste production, long history of waste charging, high disposal rate and waste disposal facilities with full service.

At the same time, we recommend establishing the classification and recycling system of municipal solid waste, and to classify waste from its source according to its different components, attributes, utilisation value and its impact on the environment. Specific implementation includes: To unify classification standard, to unify classification symbol and the colour of waste collection box, to implement waste delivery system of ‘fixed-time, fixed-point’ and to standardise the manufacturing standards of waste bags. In addition, the government still needs to improve the construction of relevant laws and regulations, clarify the main subject, main duty, power and range, provide legal guidance and norms for the regulation of waste charging, thus standardising and legalising the municipal waste charging. Finally, we recommend strengthening the propaganda of the waste charging policy, improve the urban residents’ environmental consciousness and thus fundamentally solve the existing problem of the low waste fee charging rate.

We acknowledge that implementing a unit-pricing mode may cause several problems, such as residents dumping garbage at random. However, when the waste fee under the unit-pricing method is equal to or less than the waste fee under the ration charge mode, the possibility of random dumping behaviour would greatly reduce. Then implementing the unit-pricing mode can achieve the measurement of the many benefits in the lower policy cost. The government should carry out extensive and comprehensive environmental education activities to improve the residents’ awareness of environmental protection. For those cities that have not started waste fee charging programmes, the ration charge mode should be implemented first; and second the ration charge mode would be used as a transitional charging method and then actively convert to the unit-pricing mode.

Footnotes

Declaration of conflicting interests

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The authors disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This article stems from a research project supported by National Nature Science Foundation of China (NSFC) Project [No. 71473056], Major Research Programme of the Philosophy and Social Science Fund of the Ministry of Education [No. 17JZD026], Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities [No. GK2090260158], and PhD Student Research and Innovation Fund of the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities [No. HEUGIP201719].

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