Estimating the effectiveness of different environmental law enforcement policies on illegal C&D waste dumping in Israel

• Published in: Waste management (Elmsford) 2020-02, Vol.102, p.241-248
• Main Authors: Seror, Nissim, Portnov, Boris A.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Construction & demolition (C&D) waste; Environmental Policy; Illegal dumping; Israel; Law Enforcement; Law enforcement policies; Policy; Waste Disposal Facilities
• ISSN: 0956-053X; 1879-2456
• DOI: 10.1016/j.wasman.2019.10.043

•The effectiveness of enforcement policies against C&D waste offenders is tested.•Multivariate regression analysis is performed to estimate policy effectiveness.•Vehicle impoundment policy is found to be effective in deterring potential offenders.•Low effectiveness of other policies may be due to lack of immediacy.•The proposed approach can help engineering more effective enforcement policies. Illegal dumping of construction and demolition (C&D) waste is a major concern for environmental policy-makers. Three different environmental law enforcement policies, aimed at the reduction of illegal C&D waste dumping, are enforced in Israel. These policies include fines (F), vehicle impoundment (V), and criminal indictment (I) by the court. Although, the scope of illegal C&D waste dumping in Israel appears to decline, little is known which of the above policies has been effective in combating the phenomenon. In an attempt to answer this question, we use data on F-V-I instances, recorded between July 2007 and December 2016, and compare them with monthly changes in the ratio between the amount of waste brought to authorized waste dumping sites and the estimated amount of C&D waste generated in the country each month. As the study shows, only the V-sanction was found to be significantly affecting the ratio (t = 3.083; p