The Korea Local Administration Review

The Korean Government introduced the Volume-Based Waste Fee (VBWF) for garbage disposal in 1995, with the goals of reducing wastes and encouraging recycling. This study aimed to analyze the influence of waste disposal fee under the VBWF system, the incentive programs for waste reduction, and the crackdown on illegal dumping, on the amounts of domestic wastes and recyclables. To this end, panel data from 2003-2019 for all primary local governments (cites, counties, and districts) in Korea was established. Then, a two-way fixed-effect model was used to analyze the influential factors affecting the amount of domestic wastes and recyclables. The following factors were set as the independent variables for the study: price-related data for designated VBWF bags (price, whether or not the price was increased, rate of increase), the implementation of incentives for reducing the amount of household waste, and records/reports of crackdowns on illegal acts of disposal. It was found that higher garbage bag price increased the amount of recyclables, while it was not related to the amount of domestic waste. However, the interaction term of the price-related data was found to have negative effect on the amount of both generated domestic waste and recyclables. This result shows that special attention must therefore be given to setting an appropriate level of increase when raising the price of volume-based garbage bags. The study was unable to confirm the effect of the incentive system and reporting of illegal acts. There is a need to review the appropriateness of the operational level of the existing incentive system and the enforcement of cracking down on illegal acts.