Productivity Analysis of Municipal Solid Waste Collection in Italy using SBM DEA Malmquist Index

Abstract

This paper presents a productivity analysis of municipal solid waste collection in Italian provinces from 2010 to 2019. Particularly, the total factor productivity was measured by computing the non-parametric Global Malmquist Productivity Index implementing Slack Based Measure Data Envelopment Analysis (SBM-DEA). Findings show that the productivity of the sorted waste collection service slightly grew from 2010 to 2019. Such growth was due to an increase of the technical efficiency and an improvement of the service technology. However, in some years the efficiency changes and productivity increase were affected by the rise of the per capita production of waste.