Data, Information, Evidence and Rhetoric in the Environmental Policy Process: The Case of Solid Waste Management

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EUROPEAN UNIVERSITY INSTITUTE, FLO REN CE

ROBERT SCHUMAN CENTRE

WP

3£ 1.0£09

4 EUR

Data, Information, Evidence and Rhetoric

in the Environmental Policy Process:

The Case of Solid Waste Management

DEBRA MATIER

EUI Working Paper RSC No. 95/33

BADIA FIESOLANA, SAN DOMENICO (FI)

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All rights reserved.

No part of this paper may be reproduced in any form

without permission of the author.

© Debra Matier

Printed in Italy in November 1995

European University Institute

Badia Fiesolana

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Introduction

Studies, reports, and legislation of all shapes, sizes, and authors concerning environmental protection policy invariably claim the need for more accurate information on environmental problems and possible solutions.1 But what happens when policies are made without verifiable, consistent, comprehensive, or comparable data regarding the problems and solutions to which these policies pertain?

This paper seeks to elaborate the pitfalls, observed in the particular case of solid waste management planning and policy, which result from the lack of reliable data and of failure of actors to distinguish between what Giandomenico Majone has termed "data", "information", and "evidence"2, and "rhetoric" and "heresthetic", as defined by William Riker3 *, used in the policy process. We will look at how each of these ways of presenting a problem and its potential solutions have manifested themselves in often unsuccessful attempts to provide planning and policy for environmentally-sound management and reduction of solid wastes.

1 The gaps in quantitative data among and within the U.S. and European Community Member States become evident in the numerous studies trying to compare them, including, in particular: OECD, 1994, "Waste", Environmental Indicators: Core Set. Paris, pp. 90-98; UNEP, 1994, "Wastes and Waste Management", Environmental Data Report 1993-94. New York: United Nations Environment Programme,Part 8, pp. 329-358; EUROSTAT, 1990, Statistics of the Environment. Statistical Office of the European Communities; United Nations Economic Commission for Europe, 1987, Environmental Statistics in Europe and North America. Statistical Standards Studies, New York: UN ECE, No. 39, pp. 1-31-39; McCarthy, James E., November 8, 1991, "Recycling and Reducing Packaging Waste: How the United States Compares to Other Countries", Congressional Research Service, Washington, D.C.: Library of Congress, 91-802 ENR; Commission of the European Communities, DG-XI, 1992, 27 February 1992, "Study in respect of the harmonization and improvement of reporting procedures provided for in EC Directives and Regulations relating to Waste", Report to the Waste Management Committee by Travers Morgan Environment; Van Goethem, Anne, November 1993, "Packaging Waste: The Regulatory Framework in the Twelve Member States", Europe Environment Feature; Holland, Daniel S. and John B.Braden, May 1992, "U.S. and European Community Solid Waste Management Policies: A Status Report", Illinois Agricultural Economics Staff Paper, Urbana: University of Illinois, 92 E-475.

All of these studies begin by pointing-out that data and data-collection methodologies are as of yet difficult to compare and that information in some nations and U.S. States is often unavailable.

2 Majone, Giandomenico, 1989, Evidence and Argument as Persuasion in the Policy Process. New Haven: Yale University Press, pp.46-48.

3 Riker, William H., 1986, The Art of Political Manipulation. New Haven: Yale University Press, Chap.4, p.34.

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The lack of success of legally-mandated solid waste management plans, seen in the continued overall rise of solid waste creation per person throughout the U.S. and E.U., in whatever way the problem may be measured, could be explained in part by the lack of systematic data and information collection. In particular, failure to clearly define concepts and waste categories and to uniformly impose standards of measurement at a national or supranational level has hampered policy studies and remedies in this particular area, as throughout environmental protection policy areas. For instance, "Reliable data on the nature, location and volume of waste arisings" was cited as "a pre-requisite to the planning of a network of waste management facilities"4, as required by the 1991 EC Framework Directive on Waste5. Reference to this problem has preceded literally every observed attempt to present, measure, analyze, and/or prescribe the solid waste problem. What is the nature of this problem and why has it been so difficult to collect reliable information to measure the waste problem?

This study relies upon content analysis of E.U. directives and documents, Member State and U.S. laws, administrative and international organization reports, and professional and trade literature on solid waste issues, as well as on interviews and conference discussions with key-informants in environmental and waste management policy from the U.S. and the European Union. Theoretical insights on public policy-formulation, agenda-setting, and implementation, in general, and environmental policy in particular are provided with the hope of adding to current knowledge of policy analysis. It is also hoped that this particular case study on the role of data in solid waste management planning can furnish some guidance toward improvement of existing policies.

Policy demands and supplies in search of data

Environmental protection is today of prominent policy concern in industrialized society. Citizens, individually and in the aggregate, such as in companies, interest groups, communities, or nations, are concerned about the effects of environmental degradation and regulation thereof on their health, property, and activities. Such concern drives demands for government action to mediate such effects. Environmental protection has now become a key phrase in political discourse as one of the basic points which any candidate for national public office must in some way address if he/she is to be perceived as a

4 European Commission, January 1994, "Waste Management Planning in the European Community: Proceedings of an Expert Seminar on Waste Management Planning, Waste Management Policy Unit, DG XI.A.4, Luxembourg:Office for Official Publications of the European Communities, p.l.

5 Council Directive 91/156/EEC modifying Framework Directive 75/442/EEC on waste, 18 March 1991, Official Journal of the European Communities. L 78, 26 March 1991, p.32.

2 © The Author(s). European University Institute. version produced by the EUI Library in 2020. Available Open Access on Cadmus, European University Institute Research Repository.

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legitimate protector of the "public interest". This notion of "public interest", of course, is open to wide interpretation. One camp espouses the idea that unharnessed economic growth, through preservation of current practices as traditionally conceived will lead to employment, higher wages, controlled inflation, etc., should be most in the public interest, whereby environmental protection measures must not "interfere" with economic activities and "free trade". Another interpretation would argue that protection of natural resources and "sustainable" development is necessary to provide an on-going basis for economic activities, which must adapt to more conservative use of inputs and shift employment into investigation and clean-up of polluted sites, for instance, or so-called "environment industry". Others would claim that the very notion of economic development as generally understood needs to be overhauled to halt degradation of the environment to the greatest extent. Different stances abound, each with its own selection of information, body of evidence, and rhetorical tools.

This means that equally varying demands are made of policy-makers and administrators to produce campaign promises, policy proposals, programs, plans, and laws to deal with environmental problems, as often from the perspective of preventing market distortions as for ensuring protection of public health and the natural environment. But demands become confused with information and information becomes confused with demands. For example, freedom of access to information on the environment is meant to be guaranteed to all citizens by EC Directive and certain national laws. Companies claim, however, the need to protect themselves from giving information, claiming that their competitors use these laws most6, while on the other hand, active NGO’s have also greatly benefited from access to such information and have succeeded in bringing environmental problems onto political agendas which may otherwise have been hushed.7 Game theory has devoted a great deal of attention to the strategies of players guarding their information while seeking to gain information from the other players, and economists have applied such theory to the regulatory game where industry seeks to keep information from government while giving the appearance of acquiescing.8

6 This has been reiterated by a European Commission official, corporate representatives, and an environmental NGO leader.

7 Members of the World-wide Fund for Nature, Greenpeace, and the U.S. Environmental Working Group have emphasized this fact, for instance.

8 See, for example, Cadot, Olivier and Bernard Sinclair-Desgagne, "Environmental regulation and innovation", Fontainebleau: INSEAD, Working Paper, 92/28/EP.

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Policy-makers and implementors are left in a Catch 22 situation. The dictates of rational, scientific, methodical planning advise that objective data can be collected and analyzed to discover alternative solutions, which can then be technically evaluated to produce an optimal solution. However, this makes the unrealistic assumption that data itself can be objective and fully assembled and that there are no transaction costs. In fact, the mere administrative costs of assembling data are often prohibitive for public agencies, who, therefore, more often rely on other agencies or private bodies, such as consultants, industries, or, to a lesser extent, interest groups, for provision of data. Policy-making and implementation therefore become quite another barrel of monkeys from this technocratic, rational model of planning.9

Data, Information, Evidence, and Argument

In analyzing the policy process and the use of rhetoric disguised as science to give policy arguments credibility, Majone makes an important logical distinction between information, evidence and argument. "Data" are defined as:

"the raw materials necessary for the investigation of a problem...often ’found’ rather than ’manufactured’...obtained by unplanned observations (as in the case of a time series) rather than by planned experiments."10 11

"Information" is defined as the transformation of data "into more useful and reliable form", such as the calculation of averages and statistical indices. These transformations of data into information then become the basis for analysis." What are really estimation methods, i.e. information, are in practice referred to as data, even though they are not direct observations. These measures may, in fact, be twice-removed from the real situation. They may be estimates and averages, which in themselves hide geographic, jurisdictional, socio-economic, and over-time variations, which may furthermore be based on surveys, whose assumptions, questions, and interpretation are not explicit or verifiable and are necessarily determined by the original researcher’s slant and skill. "Evidence" is then defined to be: "information selected from the available stock and introduced at a specific point in an argument", which is used "to persuade the

9 For "put-yourself-in-the-place-of-the-administrator", "real-world" alternatives to the rational-comprehensive model of policy planning, see, for example, Charles E. Lindblom’s classic 1959, "The Science of ’Muddling Through”', Public Administration Review. Spring, pp. 151-169 and Peter House’s, 1982, Public Policy Analysis. Beverly Hills: Sage.

10 Majone, 1989, p.46. 11 Ibid, p.47. © The Author(s). European University Institute. version produced by the EUI Library in 2020. Available Open Access on Cadmus, European University Institute Research Repository.

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mind that a given factual proposition is true or false"12. Evidence, then, is information chosen and presented to prove a point, to be convincing. It is as such at least twice-removed from the "real facts" or data and is not used to arrive at some ideal universal truth, but rather as a rhetorical tool to put forward one version of a socially-constructed truth. Majone goes on to point-out that:

"an inappropriate choice of data, their placement at a wrong point in the argument, a style of presentation that is unsuitable for the audience to which the argument is directed...any one...can destroy the effectiveness of information as evidence, regardless of its intrinsic cognitive content."13

Rhetoric and Heresthetic

Public policy-making also involves argumentation based neither on data nor on information, but rather on rhetoric and "heresthetic". Rhetoric is the use of language to persuade, which will rely upon use of evidence for support, as in lawyers’ arguments. Heresthetic, described by Riker to supplement social choice theory, moves the policy-making game into another dimension, as it is a political strategy of "structuring the world so you can win", or setting up a situation so that circumstances external to the problem at hand will constrain acceptance of the structurer’s preference; "the heresthetician is a battlefield strategist, an opportunist, not a closet planner and idealogue".14 This strategy of political influence can include dividing the majority, setting and controlling agendas, building coalitions to redefine the policy situation, and adding new dimensions to the debate.

These distinctions are of significant analytical importance in the social and policy "sciences" in general, because they help us to more consciously decipher between hard facts, or directly observed phenomena, and interpreted facts, or phenomena as they are perceived second-hand, selected, presented, and recounted. Although our focus here is on policy preparation and suggestions for improving data, it is important to keep in mind all of these policy-making strategies. The importance of making data as objective and comprehensive as possible, so as to narrow the room for manoeuver using these other strategies, will thus become more apparent. This said, let us move-on to analysis of some policy examples in the area of solid waste management This is an area of hot current debate and thereby is also replete with uses and abuses of data,

12 From the Encyclopedia Brittanica definition for "argument", 1974, 15th edition, Chicago, 8, p.905 in Ibid, p.48. 13 Ibid. 14 Ibid, p. 34. 5 © The Author(s). European University Institute. version produced by the EUI Library in 2020. Available Open Access on Cadmus, European University Institute Research Repository.

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information, evidence, rhetoric, and heresthetic.

The need for data in environmental planning: the case of solid waste management

The need for specific, accurate data on the quantities, sources, and composition of solid wastes presents the most fundamental area for improvement of solid waste planning and policy. Examples of data in solid waste management would be daily or annual solid waste production of a household or community, amounts of specific waste products in the waste stream, minimum treatment capacities of incinerators or recycling facilities required to keep them operational, or existing landfill space. Prices of products which lead to waste and costs of different waste elimination methods may also be directly measurable variables, on a sufficiently small scale. However, such individual direct data is rarely, if ever, measured in practice. "Pure" data, or those numbers which can be obtained simply by direct observation, are impracticable for many aspects of solid waste creation and treatment.

Some direct data could conceivably be provided by local public waste authorities, private waste management companies, or companies re-using or using recycled materials or producing certain types of wastes or waste-producing products. These operations must have detailed accounts of quantities of wastes collected and treated, of used or recycled materials bought, and of raw materials going into the manufacturing process, as well as the material and chemical composition and quantity of products. But, as of yet, such data is sparsely and inconsistently reported and protected by industry confidentiality. Such data have, therefore, not yet been widely available for providing an overall picture of total solid waste production in a community or nation.

Planning national and EC-wide responses to the solid waste problem require furthermore that data be comparable across regions and member states. Program planning, facility design, regulatory development, and financial decision-making all require these data for, for instance: selection of collection vehicles or size and number of bins for curbside collection, choice between manual or mechanical collection and separation methods, estimation of remaining landfill capacity, setting of waste transfer station, recycling plant or incinerator/energy recovery plant size, price of services, energy supply to be expected, and development of techniques for ensuring prevention of waste from the manufacture, distribution, and consumption of products.

From a more theoretical, but no less consequential, perspective, reliable data is needed to educate policy debates, so that local-level planning and implementation can be encouraged in appropriate directions by broader-level policy. It is here in policy-making where distinctions between data, information, evidence, rhetoric, and heresthetic become crucial. The arguments between

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environmental and public health and economic concerns as inherently mutually- exclusive which surround solid waste management issues become based more on ideological pre-conceptions and position-taking, than on clear review of thorough direct data and accurate information. In this way, policy-making comes to be determined largely by evidence, rhetoric and heresthetic, where persuasion and strategy, rather than information and analysis, produce plans and policies. Take, for instance, the example of the years of debate surrounding the E.U. Directive on Packaging and Packaging Waste, passed finally in December 1994.

"Economic" or "economic feasibility" arguments predominate in rhetoric and serve also as heresthetic by turning the policy tables toward a-priori consideration of monetary-financial concerns over other aspects of human well being, such as health, quality of life, and environmental protection. Such arguments have not necessarily proven any more rigorous in their data-collection and information-derivation methods. Many economic studies have also shown that imposed policy instruments, such as eco-taxes and subsidies, as well as mere threats of such government intervention, can have substantial effects on improving environmental quality.15 Majone has discussed this notion of "feasibility" as being in fact a cop-out for lack of will.16 Clearly, goals and measures deemed "infeasible" in the past, whether due to so-argued economic, legal, or political obstacles, such as Superfund in the U.S.17 or the German Ordinance on the Avoidance of Packaging Waste18 *, have simply not proven infeasible when enacted with political will. On the other side of this example, industry has also been seen to strategically propose economic measures for environmental protection. This could be seen to be the case in the U.K. proposal of the Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control Directive, which was forwarded largely to preclude other less favorable, less controllable E.U. actions, such as establishing a framework for civil liability for environmental damage. The U.K. then set out to attempt to weaken the elaboration and implementation of the very measures originally proposed. The U.K. has also pushed for the

15 This has been demonstrated recently, for example, in Cremer, Helmuth and Jacques- François Thisse, 1994, "On the Taxation of Polluting Products in a Differentiated Industry", Working Paper, Milano: Fondazione ENI Eni Enrico Mattei, 31.94 and follows Pigovian arguments advocating taxes to internalize the costs of pollution.

16 Majone, 1989, Chap.4, pp.69-75 in particular.

17 Superfund is the common name for the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA) program for remediation of abandoned hazardous waste dumps.

18 Federal Government of Germany, "Ordinance on the Avoidance of Packaging Waste", Federal Law Gazette. Bonn, BGB1, June 12, 1991.

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inclusion of the "BAT" (Best Available Technology) principle in E.U. environmental directives, only to then insist further upon the "BATNEEC" (Best Available Technology Not Entailing Excessive Cost) and "BPEO" (Best Practicable Environmental Option) principles, which virtually preclude environmental improvement in reality, once BAT was accepted.19 Meanwhile, some prominent studies, such as by an interministerial committee in the Netherlands, have indicated that "technology will not save us" and that further measures are necessary.20 The E.U. carbon-energy tax, first supported by industry, but consequently held-up in debate and attaching exemptions for those industries most targeted for energy efficiency and carbon dioxide emission reductions, provides another illustration. Industries, therefore, cannot be relied upon to provide, on their own, reliable data on the state of the environment, environmental impacts of products and processes, or environmental protection alternatives. Public authorities need to ensure accurate provision of data by individual plants and activities and to analyze these data themselves or through consultants without direct interest in the industries under study.

Economic policy "information" is subject to the same difficulties of data collection as environmental policy. In another work, Majone cites an example by Allan Coddington that national treasury departments draw the economic indicators, so crucial to economic planning, from a diverse, incomplete set of sources, or what he terms:

"the bureaucratic compounding of enormous quantities of fragmentary and even ambiguous pieces of information: the components are thrown up as a result (or even as a by-product) of the general administrative process of society...assembled and aggregated by teams of statisticians who have not themselves collected the information".21

19 BATNEEC and BPEO specifically underlie the pollution control approach set-out in the U.K. Environmental Protection Act of 1990.

20 This was the conclusion of the Netherlands’ Commission for Long-Term Environmental Policy in its 1990 report on the practicability of sustainable development. This Commission comprises 5 government ministries within the Netherlands Sustainable Technology Development Program. See, "Sustainability: looking back from the future" in UNEP Industry and Environment. July-September 1994, vol.17, no.3, pp.51-52.

21 Coddington, Allan, 1969, "Are Statistics Vital?", The Listener. 11 December 1969, in Majone, Giandomenico, 1991, "Public Policy Beyond the Headlines", Working Paper, Florence: European University Institute, SPS No.91/9, p.6-7.

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These sources would include industry surveys, censes, local economic base studies, and tax information, for instance. They are in themselves derived from information, that is, from data already transformed and carrying the original analysts’ biases, objectives, and resources. Rather than being directly observed data, these indicators become third-hand or farther-removed interpretations of this amalgamated information. Economic arguments, therefore, for the need to protect "free trade", "economic growth", profit margins, or against "excessive costs" must be seen as, precisely, arguments, which may be supported with evidence (or selected information, but not data per se) or simply with nothing more than rhetoric and strategic manoeuvering of the debate and situation themselves.

One example of such manipulation of the political situation to block environmental protection measures with economic justifications can be seen where Ronald Reagan, as U.S. President, used what can be considered as heresthetic. He effectively employed a strategy of delaying implementation of environmental protection policies by requiring budget analyses and pushing cut backs in resources and personnel, controlling the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Department of the Interior through executive orders and director appointments. Such manoeuvers could be more rapidly and fully employed than replacing existing regulations, which would have entailed direct, negative public reaction and considerable negotiating costs.22 * In this case, use of economic rhetoric and political influence precluded presentation of data, information and evidence, while environmental and health protection arguments were at the same time delegitimized as lacking data with precisely the same discourse. Policy debate and institution-building need clearly to move beyond these traditional opposing rhetorical axes if environmental problems are to be rectified, or at least slowed. And there does appear to be room for improvement of data, information and use thereof.

Methods of data-collection

Closer look at the methods of assessment of solid waste generation will reveal more clearly that measures are not direct. The U.S. EPA provides perhaps the clearest and most easily accessible discussion of current data-collection methods, but with information and evidence, rather than direct data, still predominant. Current methods of solid waste measurement in the U.S. and E.U. Member States rely on statistical manipulations, averages across communities

22 For more on such maneuvers by various U.S. administrations, see, for example, Dunlap, Riley E., "Public Opinion and Environmental Policy", in Lester, James P., Environmental Politics and Policy. Durham: Duke University Press, Chap.4, p.l 13. and Szasz, Andrew, 1986, "The Process and Significance of Political Scandals: A Comparison of Watergate and the Sewergate Episode at the EPA", Social Problems. 33: 202-217.

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and time, and, in some cases, surveys of households and businesses to estimate total solid waste production per person and the composition of this waste stream. For example, a survey in the U.S. has shown that of 24 States (less than half of all U.S.States) which reported recycling rates in 1991, only 14 had based these figures on quantified data, and only six had compiled data directly from municipalities to show actual tonnages of each material recycled.23 Interestingly, those States (California, Florida, Minnesota, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Washington) with the most detailed data were also those with the highest recycling rates.

The method considered "the most accurate means of developing data on the local waste stream", by the U.S. EPA, is sampling and statistical analysis. Samples of wastes are taken at the local landfill, incinerator, or curbside program, for instance, and manually separated, identified and weighed during a given time period, ideally all day for a week during each season. This is favored, as local particularities are reflected, however, inaccurate sampling techniques or size, categorization of waste components, measurement precision, or statistical analysis could make results appear more reliable than they are. Furthermore, locally-constructed and -conducted studies are likely to be compared without accounting for study differences, perhaps leading to misguided planning on a broader level.

Another method suggested by the U.S.EPA is to rely on waste assessments already conducted in other communities, of similar demographics, income and urban/rural distribution, economic base, and waste sources, combined with general local (i.e. collector or facility operator) knowledge of waste stream characteristics to estimate local waste generation. This type of information, however, reflects only a particular waste site at a particular time, which risks not representing the general situation.

Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is another more recently developed method of generation of information for waste assessment, which greatly broadens the data, as well as the solutions, needed to deal effectively with the solid waste problem. LCA is described as a: "compilation of quantitative data on composite, direct, and indirect materials, energy inputs and outputs and waste emissions, both in production and disposal of a product".24 * * Direct measurements of inputs and outputs can be taken from national, industry and factory-level accounting data and transformed into information for prediction using computer models.

23 National Solid Wastes Management Association, 1991, "Recycling in the States: 1990 Review", Special Report, Washington,D.C., p. 13.

24 Ayres, Robert U., 1993, "Life-Cycle Analysis and Materials/Energy Forecasting Models", Working Paper, Centre for the Management of Environmental Resources, Fontainebleau: INSEAD, 93/60/EPS, p.2.

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Materials-balance and eco-profile analyses follow similar lines. Development of such methods can preclude the need to estimate waste quantities and composition, as well as allowing accounting back to the extraction of raw materials, recovery of secondary materials, their transportation, and production of the final product. This allows planning particularly for the crucial goal of waste prevention. This goal has been strongly suggested and in some cases mandated by national and EU legislation and negotiated agreements and placed consistently first in legislated hierarchies of waste management approaches to be pursued.25 However, data collection remains problematic for this complicated method. Questionnaires of individual firms have been used for particular data and estimates have been constructed based on published economic indicators. However, coefficients need to be reviewed and revised often and industry confidentiality often precludes accessibility to and verification of data and repetition of studies. Lack of resources or expertise on methods of data collection create further obstacles. Use of this analysis technique by manufacturers is encouraged in developing new products, for example by the U.S.EPA, the European Commission, and the international Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry, but no regulations require that they be performed, nor that data be made available for public authorities to perform such studies. Currently, only a handful of companies actually perform such assessments on selected products.26

A final method of study of solid waste management is cost-benefit analysis. Such study is required on environmental projects in the U.S.27 * * and is also strongly suggested in other national, EC, and international measures in wording such as finding the "lowest possible cost", "not entailing excessive costs", etc. This analysis adds consideration of the fact that environmental and public health should be somehow balanced with economic needs to assure the well-being of citizens. It entails measuring and comparing the relative potential monetary costs and benefits (in terms of the net present value of investment expenditures versus the net present value of the benefits to be had from that investment) of different project alternatives to find the supposed optimal strategy

25 Generally acknowledged waste management hierarchy: Reduction at source or Prevention / Reuse / Recycling or Materials recovery / Incineration without energy recovery or Landfill

26 For more on life cycle assessment methods, applications, and EPA activities see an article by Curran, Mary Ann, 1993, "Broad-based Environmental Life Cycle Assessment", Environmental Science and Technology, vol.27, no.3, pp.431-436.

27 Benefit-cost studies by the Office of Budget Management and the EPA were required on any environmental protection project, as initiated by President Ronald Reagan in 1981 by Executive Order. © The Author(s). European University Institute. version produced by the EUI Library in 2020. Available Open Access on Cadmus, European University Institute Research Repository.

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for dealing with solid waste. However, reliance strictly on such analyses for planning and policy-making is shortsighted in several respects. The most fundamental problem is that monetary values cannot be measured for all environmental benefits, such as ground and surface water protection by controlling landfills, reduction or suppression of toxic and C 02 emissions from incinerators, decreased traffic to and from waste management facilities, etc. Monetary costs, therefore, of waste management projects, more visible in financial than in environmental-social terms, tend to be over-emphasized with respect to benefits in policy debates. John Kingdon, in his well-known study of how policy problems become perceived as such, acknowledges this tendency, saying that, "Studies of fair shares are actually extremely complicated cost allocation problems that turn strikingly on the assumptions the researcher makes about marginal costs."28

Financial costs and benefits, even once quantified, are difficult to compare for competing projects, such as an incinerator with energy recovery versus a curbside recovery and recycling program, because of extraneous, unforeseeable variables such as political and economic climate. There are too many unknowns for policy educated solely by this technique to be dependable. Even if data can be provided, it will be incomplete, based only on specific, static, and not necessarily representative cases. Again, the situation found here is that so-called "data" on costs and benefits on project alternatives are most often provided to planners and policy-makers by the very proponents of particular projects, making the basis of policy clearly evidence disguised as information for the real purpose of persuasion.29

Despite the power of quantitative indicators in guiding problem- perception, planning, and policy-making and evaluation30 *, each of these measurement techniques continues to be plagued by the lack of accessible, consistent, reliable, verifiable, and comparable data. Information is produced only from a selected set of data, which cannot, in its incompleteness, accurately

28 Kingdon, John W., 1984, Agendas. Alternatives, and Public Policies. Glenview, Illinois: Scott, Foresman and Co., p.99.

29 For further information on cost-benefit study as applied to environmental protection, see, among many others, Freeman III, A.Myrick, "Economics, Incentives, and Environmental Regulation" in Vig, Norman J. and Kraft, Michael E., 1990, Environmental Policy in the 1990’s. Congressional Press, Chap.7, pp. 145-166, and Lanigan, Seana, 1993, "Valuing the Unknown: Cost-benefit analysis and air pollution", Oxford Institute for Energy Studies, EV16.

30 This is shown, for instance, by Kingdon where interview responses of legislative staff, administrators, lobbyists, journalists, researchers, and consultants showed high tendencies to mention indicators as evidence of a problem and of their advocated solutions thereof, especially with regards to specific policy cases. See p. 98 in particular.

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reflect the true state of affairs, whereby hindering national and international attempts to plan and implement policies. However, despite this continuing lack of fundamental data, policies have been made and debated across the U.S. and E.C. since the 1970’s dealing with solid waste management. So what, then, has guided policy formulation and decisions in this obvious absence of clear data? It would appear that environmental policy, such as solid waste management planning, has been conducted based on derived information, selected evidence, constructed rhetoric, and designed heresthetic.

Concepts, classifications, and confusion

These problems are all the more accentuated when data-collection and analysis move beyond local plant, neighborhood, and city levels to industries, major metropolitan areas, states, regions, national, and particularly international levels. Conceptual differences across U.S. States and E.U. Member States mean first of all that different objects are measured. Then, in turn, data, based on non- universal categories and measurement criteria, is further transformed into information and presented as evidence. This clearly has a major impact on the way in which a problem can be depicted. Major differences exist among U.S. States in the ways they classify wastes and hence measure waste generation and recycling rates. For instance, food processing waste, sewage sludge, construction and demolition debris, non-hazardous industrial waste and scrap metal are accepted in some municipal landfills, thus exagerrating measures of "household" waste quantities and composition based on samples taken from these landfills versus other landfills versus households. For instance, if junked cars are included in household waste recycling rate calculations, as in a few U.S. States, this greatly increases the rate, as the scrap metal is highly recyclable (about 80%) versus other waste materials.31

Inconsistencies in aggregating data present major obstacles to analysis of waste sources and streams. Definitions and categorizations of waste types and of methods of dealing with these wastes are crucial to the correct and timely implementation, monitoring, and enforcement of solid waste plans and policy measures. For instance, the 1991 EC Directive on wastes, in modifying certain shortcomings of the original framework waste directive of 1975, states this as its first goal: "considering that, to make the management of wastes in the Community more efficient, it is necessary to develop a common terminology and a definition of wastes".32 * The Directive then specifies what can be

31 National Solid Wastes Management Association, 1991, "Recycling in the States: 1990 Review", Special Report, Washington,D.C., p. 13.

32 "Council Directive 91/156/EEC of 18 March 1991 modifying Directive 75/442/EEC on waste", Official Journal of the European Communities. 26 March 1991, No. L 78, p.32.

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considered as: wastes, falling within specific categories of wastes, elimination operations, and valorization operations33. However, Member States still continue largely to use their own differing definitions and classifications and to resist submission of annual reports and waste management plans, which are then also difficult to verify when they are submitted.

Reference in this paper, for example, to "solid wastes" refers only to household and non-dangerous commercial wastes. However, this can cause confusion as "solid wastes" can include industrial wastes in certain German and U.S. laws. Italian laws refer to "urban wastes", French to either "domestic" (only household) or "banal" (household and commercial non-dangerous) wastes, and British and some German to "household", while some U.S. laws and plans refer to "municipal solid" wastes. Each term can refer to waste streams of a variety of waste types and origins. Furthermore, wastes classified as "household" or "solid municipal", etc. contain toxics, but are still considered as non-dangerous. A major debate over the E.U. Directive on Packaging and Packaging Waste, for example, was whether or not "recycling" should refer also to incineration with energy recovery, as France, in particular, insisted with eventual success over Germany opposition.34 Problem-conceptualization corresponds neither with technical treatment requirements for protection of health and the environment nor with national and supranational planning necessary for waste reduction. Such confusion leads to key difficulties in formulation, negotiation, implementation, evaluation and enforcement of overarching policies at U.S. and E.U. levels. Comparative difficulties

These analytical problems become compounded when results are to be compared across localities, regions, or nations, where data are "collected" and information derived by different and often incomparable means. For measuring quantities of wastes to be eliminated, for example, German, Flemish Belgian, Danish, Irish, and some U.S. measurements rely upon statistical deductions from

33 "Valorization", for example, comes from the French, where re-use, recycling, incineration with energy recovery, composting are considered to be part and parcel of the same practice of recovering materials from wastes, and are, hence, equally accepted in meeting recycling targets. This greatly differs, however, from the German exclusion of any incineration and of clear distinction between recovery, re-use, and recycling targets as well as the acceptance of the new concept of "natural recycling", in the case of turning plastics back into oil.

34 The German 1991 Ordinance on the Avoidance of Packaging Waste and the 1986 Waste Law strictly exclude incineration of any kind from the methods considered acceptable for meeting recovery and recycling targets, although the new 1994 Circle Economy and Waste Act has had to allow incineration, perhaps as a result of the outcome at EU level. See Note 32 on French law’s treatment of recycling.

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waste stream samples, while French Belgian, British and some U.S. methods rely upon estimates based on averages. Some estimates of composition and quantities of wastes are based on surveys of households, which can vastly differ in assumptions, variables, interpretations, and applications, with only, if even, the "quantitative results" being made apparent. Even among U.S. States, where waste management requirements are unified into a national legal and administrative framework, States and localities differ in the methods used, whereby: "Reports based on these [local waste stream] studies vary both in content and representation, and are in many respects difficult to compare".35 It is, therefore, not surprising to see the current incomparability of Member State reports in the E.U., where such reports have even been submitted to the Commission at all. An official from the Commission Directorate-General XI responsible for Environment has reported that over half of the 15 current Member States have failed to even submit national environment reports as required by the 1991 Waste Directive.

Public competences for collecting and supplying data

Political-jurisdictional competences of public authorities for solid waste management are distributed in various ways across countries and regions as well as across different authorities. This can be one explanation for difficulties in collecting and analyzing data systematically and furnishing information and reporting in a uniform fashion. The first obstacle to data collection, mentioned in the January 1994 Expert Seminar on Waste Management in the E.C. organized by the Commission’s Waste Policy Unit,36 * * was the incompatibility between the geographical-political jurisdictions of waste management planners and the scope of action required for management of various wastes. Particularly large-scale, high-investment facilities tend to be beyond both planning authority jurisdiction and its level of more general expertise. This is further accentuated if source reduction is to be implemented and monitored, as a certain level of public intervention in companies’ production practices is involved, with further implications for publication of government findings and legal protection of corporate confidentiality.

There is a vast diversity of actors in and approaches to solid waste

35 U.S.EPA, 1989, p.28.

36 European Commission, January 1994, "Waste Management Planning in the European Community: Proceedings of an Expert Seminar on Waste Management Planning, Waste Management Policy Unit, DG XI.A.4, Luxembourg:Office for Official Publications of the European Communities, p.3. 15 © The Author(s). European University Institute. version produced by the EUI Library in 2020. Available Open Access on Cadmus, European University Institute Research Repository.

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management planning in the U.S., the EU and its Member States.37 Competences vary as solid waste management plans: 1) are required of Member States by EC Directive, 2) are required, more or less vaguely, by national laws in some Member States, so far, and the U.S., 3) may be compiled in a national framework plan on solid/household/urban wastes, on wastes in general, or on overall environmental protection, 4) may be drawn-up and implemented at regional level, as is the practice for German Laender and U.S. States, or 5) may be drawn-up and implemented by localities, as is done in France, the U.K., and also the U.S., but within frameworks of broader laws and plans.

Legislative, or at least national administrative, actions, specifying public authority competences in data-collection could be added to the existing frameworks currently requiring waste management plans. For example, the "self- sufficiency", "proximity", and "reduction at source" principles for EU and Member State waste management, enunciated in the two framework EU Waste Directives and the Fifth Environmental Action Programme, need to be translated into specific competences at national and sub-national levels.38 More detailed requirements for report content, methodology, and concept definitions would ensure greater harmonization of data practices and cooperation between jurisdictions and agencies, clearer description of the overall state of affairs allowing better-informed analysis of policy alternatives, and improve monitoring capabilities of environment agencies and legislatures, allowing more precise enforcement through administrative and legal measures. Data-collection and reporting requirements could then conceivably be justiciable legally provided definitions of terms in legislation requiring them is made sufficiently clear and explicit.39 * For instance, in a 1994 case, the European Court of Justice was able to decide that France had failed to meet recycling program requirements under the 1985 Directive on Containers of Liquids for Human Consumption. The

57 See for instance, on conflicts between States and U.S.EPA officials, Gormley, William, 1987, "Intergovernmental Conflict on Environmental Policy: the Attitudinal Connection", Western Political Quarterly. 40, pp.285-303 and Davis, Charles E. and James P. Lester, "Federalism and Environmental Policy", in Lester, J., 1989, chap.3, pp.57-84.

38 For a good summary of these E.U. principles. Directives, and the Basel Convention, see Caroline London, 4 June 1993, "Mouvements transfrontaliers de déchets et libre circulation des marchandises: vers un nouvel équilibre?", Les Petites Affiches, No.67, pp. 13-

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39 It must be noted that Council Directive 91/157/EEC of 23 December 1991 on the standardization of reports concerning the implementation of certain environmental directives, Official Journal of the European Communities. L 377, 31 December 1991, p.48, does set-out a form, in the Annex, to be followed in reporting solid waste quantities, but still fails to incorporate clear requirements as to how that data is to be collected and classified.

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French government had concluded only vague, non-renewable, short-term voluntary agreements, rather than the intended long-term plan with precise, quantified recycling targets and deadlines for meeting these targets and for review and revision of plan provisions. The European Commission is to publish a report on 1 April 1996 on the implementation of the 1991 Waste Directive, which should shed more light on these issues.

The need for centralized, harmonized data is apparent on Member State, U.S. federal and State levels, not only on supranational level. Improvement of data and classifications should not be understood to be only the responsibility of supranational or U.S. federal bodies, but, as Ludwig Kraemer points-out, all necessary measures for environmental protection should be "assessed by taking into account all available sources, not only the existence of an international or Community instrument".40 Lack of harmonized, reliable data should not be used as justification for inaction in dealing with the solid waste problem on any government level.

Providers and Users of Information

Sources of data on solid waste creation and management possibilities abound today. But quantity does not necessarily mean quality. The U.S. EPA, in its Decision-Makers Guide to Solid Waste Management, states that sources of information on community waste generation are "local haulers and facility (e.g.landfill) operators".41 * The U.S.EPA is in itself a provider of information in compiling and distributing this information to solid waste management planners regarding variables to be measured in assessing waste generation and planning solutions. The U.S.EPA emphasizes the need for localities to collect basic data on solid waste generation and composition with suggestions on how to do so (further evidence that fundamental data is still lacking). It also points- out that assessment must be on-going to monitor implementation and to correct where improvements are needed.

In the U.S. case, public waste stream studies have been conducted largely for state and county solid waste management, resource recovery, and recycling planning, although to a fairly limited, but growing, extent, as has been similar in Germany and the U.K. Where do these public authorities obtain their information? Local collection services and facility operators, which may be public or private, are cited as "excellent sources of information on the local

40 Kraemer, Ludwig, 1993, "Environmental Protection and Article 30 EEC Treaty", Common Market Law Review, 30, p.143.

41 U.S.EPA, November 1989, Decision-Makers Guide to Solid Waste Management. Washington, D.C.: Office of Solid Waste, p.24.

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waste stream, and in some cases, will have written records".42 Additional suggested sources of information include public authority documents and plans, retail trade reports, and census, utility company, and employment statistics. However, the difficulty of obtaining information, such as retail trade reports, nevermind verifying its accuracy or checking its methodology and measurements, undermines reliance on such information. Laura Strohm, for instance, in discussing the need to redesign domestic waste management, points- out that: "Classifications must not be assigned to wastes by the shipper or generator, as that carries an inherent conflict of interest and temptation to underclass".43

To varying degrees, but in all national cases, solid waste management planning has tended to be highly corporatist, controlled in some cases entirely by national or regional public authorities with information provided almost solely from involved industrial interests. In France, the extreme may be seen where the report on packaging waste called for and used by the Minister of the Environment to form the basis of French policy thereupon was prepared by the director of one of Europe’s largest packaging companies.44 The information presented was selected as evidence in favor of this producer’s interests, and is disputable in light of other information on the household and packaging waste situation in France.45 * * Likewise, in the U.K., the Department of the Environment plan on "Integrated Solid Waste Management" to address similar packaging waste issues, but without consequent legal obligation, was prepared by the

42 Ibid, p.28.

43 Strohm, Laura A., 1993, "The Environmental Politics of the International Waste Trade", Journal of Environment and Development. Summer, vol.2, No.2, p.147.

44 Beffa, Jean-Louis, 14 October 1991, "Rapport sur la valorisation des déchets d’emballage domestiques”, Ministère de l’Environnement, Neuilly-sur-Seine: République française.

45 See, for example, the 1993, Les déchets en chiffres report by the Agence de l’environnement et de la maîtrise de l’énergie (l’ADEME), Angers; comparative data from the EU such as Van Goethem, Anne, November 1993, Environment Europe, Feature Supplement on "Packaging Waste: The Regulatory Framework in the 12 Member States", European Information Service, Brussels; and a report comparing the German and French household packaging policies by Defeuilley, Christophe and Philippe Quirion, September 1994, "Les Déchets d’emballage ménagers: une analyse économique des politiques française et allemande", INSEE, G 9411. 18 © The Author(s). European University Institute. version produced by the EUI Library in 2020. Available Open Access on Cadmus, European University Institute Research Repository.

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Industry Council for Packaging and the Environment.46 T h e r e p o r t preceding the German Ordinance for the Avoidance of Packaging Waste, prepared by the Federal Environment Agency (Umweltbundesamt) and regional environment ministries of the Laender and presented by the Federal Environment Minister, however, presents a much more administratively-controlled approach to data collection and presentation.47 In the Netherlands, another information and planning style again is reflected in the preparation of the Packaging Covenant.48 * Between the French corporatist and German ministerial approaches, this Covenant presents an agreement between industry and environment and trade ministries, with small input from consumer and environmental groups. As part of the agreement, the Dutch Environment Minister threatens to impose regulations if the stipulations are not met within the given time period. In the U.S., looking closely at the U.S.EPA guide, for instance, intended to instruct public officials on how to manage solid wastes, it is seen that it was developed by a consulting firm, under Office of Solid Waste Management direction, and reviewed by a team of experts. These experts represented selected local administrations, public works and solid waste management agency departments and national groups representative thereof, county and interstate waste authorities, State environmental management agencies, consultants, environmental protection groups, and waste management and recovery companies and trade associations. Although an attempt is made to introduce a cross-section of interests and to allow presentation of evidence from various sources into policy-formulation, administrative and industry interests are clearly better represented.

The strategic importance of information and evidence, presented under the guise of data, is undeniable and evident in the existence of so many contradicting claims on the states of affairs, each supported by some sort of "data", which is really "evidence", by our definition. The head of the European Environment Bureau, for instance, when asked how NGO’s may bring

46 This so-called "Business Plan" was compiled from proposals by the British Retail Consortium, the Food and Drink Federation, and the Institute of Grocery Distribution with technical advice from the European Recovery and Recycling Association and the Organic Reclamation and Composting Association, all of which represent for-profit interests. This minimal 7-page plan was presented 3 March 1992 to the Department of the Environment.

47 Umweltbundesamt, "Sachverstaendigenrat fuer Umweltfragen: Sondergenlachten Abfallmistschaft 1990”, Bonn: Federal Government of Germany.

48 Ministerie van Volkshuisvesting, Ruimtelijke Ordening en Milieubeheer (Minister of Housing, Physical Planning and Environment) and the Stichting Verpakking en Milieu (Foundation for Packaging and the Environment), 6 June 1991, "Packaging Covenant", The Hague: State of the Netherlands.

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themselves up-to-par on technical information regarding details of environmental protection, as in eco-labelling of specific product types, for example, replied that industries provide so many contradicting claims and evidence, that the NGO’s job is to just sit back and take it all in.49

A recent development in the U.S. can perhaps most poignantly illustrate the use of information strategically for purely persuasive purposes, in solid waste policy planning and formulation. A new profession of "strategic managers" has formed over the past few years. These are private sector specialists in working with the media, community relations and government affairs on behalf of industry and local governments in "managing" environmental projects. This "management" in fact refers to the control and persuasion of the press, citizens, and local governments through a campaign for acceptance of a given project, namely in siting solid waste management facilities.50 *

Public regulation of industry for environmental data provision

Here, we must take a moment to consider the general roles that industries now play and should play in the future in furnishing data on and solutions to environmental problems in which they are directly implicated. This can apply to any environmental problem in general, but we will use the case of solid waste to illustrate.

Industry is implicated in three general ways in contributing to the solid waste problem, whereupon data should be provided and solutions developed and implemented. First of all, industry produces wastes during the production and sale process. Secondly, items are manufactured which lead to solid waste in themselves after consumption. Thirdly, industry provides products and services for handling solid wastes. Industries can be sources of innovation of materials, products, and practices, as well as of measurement techniques, to allow reduction of solid waste quantities requiring disposal. At the same time, manufacturing and distribution activities are responsible for creating the problem in the first place (without neglecting also mention of the responsibility of consumers for what they demand and consume). Some industries depend on high quantities of solid waste creation to be viable, while also favoring certain regulatory measures which might give them an edge. Others, producing polluting by-products and final products will strictly oppose waste regulation as inherently burdensome. Many industrial sectors have an interest in continuing current solid waste production, while some, at the same time, have clearly benefitted from

49 4 July 1995, Summer School on "Environment in Europe: In Search of Flexible and Efficient Instruments", Florence: European University Institute.

50 For example, see the article by Sarber, Kelly, April 1994, "How to Strategize for Successful Project Development: Campaign Tactics", BioCvcle. pp. 32-35.

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environmental regulation.

Protecting the environment can be big business for some sectors.51 Industrial interest is closely tied to environmental regulation, not only to block it, as industry is traditionally thought of having a confrontational stance vis-a-vis environmental protection, but also, on the contrary, in some cases pushing it to favor certain sectors. Industry committees, in national governments, such as national ministries and parliaments and in EU bodies on industry, trade, and competition as well as in international organizations, such as the generally business-oriented Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), have turned attention to the implications of environmental regulation for competitiveness and also to the development of this new environment market sector. A 1992 OECD Industry Committee report on "The OECD Environment Industry: Situation, Prospects and Government Policies" projects a 5.5 per cent annual growth rate until the year 2000 in the world environmental goods and services market, estimated to be worth $200 billion in 1992. It suggests that: "Both ecological and economic objectives may be served by a commercial approach to the environment".52 * Arguments that environmental protection regulations invariably hurt industry interests are not upheld by this evidence. Across-the-board consideration of industry as opposed to environmental legislation is incorrect, as is also blind reliance on market mechanisms to invisibly solve problems without public intervention.

Accompanying this environment industry development, and most likely as the consequence of it, is the shift over the past decade of environmental protection policy instruments toward market-oriented schemes, away from exclusive reliance on the "command and control" legal regulatory approaches. It should be bom in mind, however, that assessment of the potentials and successes of market schemes must be tempered by the recognition that strong

51 See for instance the book by Harold Crooks, 1994, Giants of Garbage. Boston: James Lorimer and Co., and the frequent articles on waste management written in prominent business periodicals, such as the Financial Times. Wall Street Journal, and The Economist, the latter of which even has a regular "waste"-reporter.

52 OECD Industry Committee, 1992, "The OECD Environment Industry: Situation, Prospects and Government Policies", Paris: OECD, GD (92)1, p.4. Other notable reports on the environment industry include: Office of Technology Assessment, January 1994, "Industry, Technology and the Environment: Competitive Challenges and Business Opportunities", United States Congress, Washington, D.C.: U.S.Government Printing Office; European Commission, 1993-1994, "Growth, Competitiveness, Employment: The Challenges and ways forward into the Twenty-first Century", White Paper, Luxembourg, Office of Official Publications of the European Communities, vol.l.; European Commission DG-XI, May 1994, "The Potential Benefits of Integration of Environmental and Economic Policies”, Main Report, volumes I-III, Brussels: Office of Official Publications of the European Communities.