The Economy and Management School, Harbin Engineering University, Harbin 150001, China.
The School of International and Public Affairs, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, China; China Institute for Urban Governance, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, China.
Sci Total Environ. 2020 Nov 15;743:140707. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.140707. Epub 2020 Jul 9.
Governments in many developing countries, such as China, are investing a lot of human, financial and material resources to ensure that as much of municipal solid waste (MSW) as possible is collected for centralized harmless treatment and disposal. This is regarded as an effective way to alleviate the "waste siege" problem in governance caused by the continuous enormous increase in MSW quantity. Therefore, how to improve the efficiency of MSW collection service system is an important governance issue because the inputs that can be utilized to manage MSW problem are limited due to budget and resource constraints. However, studies on MSW collection efficiency in developing countries like China are under-represented in the existing literature. This paper applies a stochastic frontier analysis (SFA) approach to evaluate the efficiency of MSW collection services in 30 provinces of China from 2008 to 2017, and explore the relative importance of several factors that might influence collection efficiency. The results indicate that there exists considerable room (62.8%) to enhance efficiency since its current efficiency value is merely 0.372. With regard to influencing factors, the proportion of population aged 15-64 appears to have the greatest positive impact on efficiency, along with per capita GDP, added value of tertiary industry and education level. This paper also explores spatial variations of MSW collection efficiency across the eastern, central and western regions. These findings have policy implications and can inform the related government departments how to formulate proper policies to improve collection efficiency.
许多发展中国家的政府，如中国，正在投入大量的人力、财力和物力，以确保尽可能多地收集城市固体废物（MSW）进行集中无害处理和处置。这被认为是缓解因 MSW 数量持续大幅增加而导致的“垃圾围城”治理问题的有效途径。因此，如何提高 MSW 收集服务系统的效率是一个重要的治理问题，因为由于预算和资源限制，可用于管理 MSW 问题的投入是有限的。然而，在现有文献中，对中国等发展中国家 MSW 收集效率的研究还不够充分。本文应用随机前沿分析（SFA）方法评估了 2008 年至 2017 年中国 30 个省份的 MSW 收集服务效率，并探讨了可能影响收集效率的几个因素的相对重要性。结果表明，由于其当前效率值仅为 0.372，因此仍有相当大的提高效率的空间（62.8%）。关于影响因素，15-64 岁人口比例似乎对效率有最大的正向影响，其次是人均国内生产总值、第三产业增加值和教育水平。本文还探讨了 MSW 收集效率在东部、中部和西部地区的空间差异。这些发现具有政策意义，可以为相关政府部门提供信息，帮助其制定适当的政策来提高收集效率。
