Measuring technical, environmental and eco-efficiency in municipal solid waste management in Chile

Abstract

Moving towards a circular and sustainable economy requires improving the management of municipal solid waste (MSW) increasing recycling rates while minimising unsorted waste and operational costs. It is essential to evaluate the economic and environmental efficiency of MSW services. Previous studies focused on developed countries and employed radial parametric and non-parametric methods. By contrast, this study assessed the technical efficiency, environmental efficiency and eco-efficiency of several Chilean municipalities employing the non-radial range adjusted measure approach. A second stage of assessment was conducted to explore the influence of a set of environmental variables on efficiency scores. Results revealed that the evaluated Chilean municipalities performed poorly from a technical perspective since the average technical efficiency score was 0.484. By contrast, average environmental efficiency and eco-efficiency scores were 0.899 and 0.922, respectively. Nevertheless, the percentage of eco-efficient municipalities was lower than 1%. It was also found that tourism had a major and negative impact on all types of efficiency. By contrast, population density had a significant and positive impact on environmental efficiency. The assessment of three types of efficiency provides relevant information to policymakers to define specific strategies to improve MSW management according to sustainability and circular economic objectives.