Environmental Paper Final Report
The use of deposit refunds as pollution
control policy in Urban areas: the case of
Zimbabwe (Harare)
Accounting for Urban Environment Workshop, Tanzania:
10-15 January,2005
By
Nyasha Kaseke
December 2003
University of Zimbabwe
Department of Business Studies
P o Box MP167
Mt Pleasant
Harare
Zimbabwe
Tel 263 –023 314 674
Email : nykaseke@yahoo.com
Abstract
This paper examines the success of the deposit refund system as a measure of
controlling the dilapidated shining city of Harare, which was one of the highly
recognized shinny cities of Africa in the early 1980s. It is a Policy issue that is of
major concern not to Zimbabwe alone but to other African countries. Harare faced
massive pollution from all sorts of waste of both biodegradable (things which can rot)
and non-biodegradable waste (which can not rot such as plastics). Besides being an
indirect environmental clean up instrument it has more than double dividends to the
society especially with the ailing Zimbabwe with more than 50% unemployment rate
as it creates jobs and reduce poverty as well as reducing clean up cost to affected
environment.
Deposit refund system is an economic instrument that aim at shifting responsibility
for controlling pollution, maintaining and enforcement to individual producers and
consumers who are charged in advance for the potential damage It is one of the major
successful instrument of clean up because of its incentive and rewards nature to the
individuals and firms. The success is heavily attributed with the actual returns as
people are even picking up all beverages containers they come across for money.
Deposit refund systems are applicable to a wide range of products and by-products
from beverages containers and packaging of car batteries, vehicle hulks, to plastics
and hazardous materials.
The paper makes use of responses in the form of elasticities in analysing how people
respond to the changes in the deposit refunds. The responsiveness will be shown by
the nature of the elasticity.
i
Abstract ....................................................................................................................... i
THE ACTUAL PROBLEM ........................................................................................... 1
Questions of Significance to the analysis .................................................................. 1
INTRODUCTION ......................................................................................................... 2
BACK GROUND .......................................................................................................... 4
SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY............................................................................... 5
OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY ................................................................................... 6
HOW THE REFUND IS CALCULATED .................................................................... 6
RELEVENCE TO OTHER AFRICAN COUNTRIES.................................................. 7
RELEVENCE TO DEVELOPED COUNTRIES .......................................................... 8
REQUIREMENTS FOR DEPOSIT REFUND SYSTEM ........................................... 10
MATERIALS FOR ANALYSIS ................................................................................. 11
Batteries ................................................................................................................... 11
Glass ......................................................................................................................... 11
Beverage cans .......................................................................................................... 12
Benefits and Constraints of Refund system: ................................................................ 13
HOW TO TEST THE SIGNIFICANCE OF DEPOSIT REFUND SYSTEM ............ 14
Data collection ......................................................................................................... 14
Setting hypothesis .................................................................................................... 14
ELASTICITIES ........................................................................................................... 14
CONCLUSION ............................................................................................................ 16
RECOMMENDATIONS ............................................................................................. 17
BIBLIOGRAPHY ........................................................................................................ 19
ii
THE ACTUAL PROBLEM
Solid waste disposal has become a problem in Zimbabwe especially in urban areas
due to urbanization (increasing population), the expansion of industries and the use of
non-biodegradable plastics and bottles, which are increasingly in use in the country.
This call for the need of urgent policy issues to protect the rapidly and grossly
expanding pollution in the country and one of the major instruments, deposit refund
system is used as a supplement to the command and control measures in the country.
Solid waste is composed of durable goods, disposable goods, containers and
packaging, food scraps, and yard trimmings. Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) comes
from households, businesses, restaurants, institutions and some small industries. Of
major emphasis are those that have deposit refund system.
Questions of Significance to the analysis
 Has this instrument been introduced on mandatory basis or is it based on
voluntary agreement with industry?
 For how long has the instrument be in force?
 On which product(s) is the deposit refund levied, what is the actual rate and
what percentage is the deposit refund rate of the products' market price?
 What is the percentage of products returned?
 What is the market share of refillables or returnables?
 How do target groups or the public receive the deposit refund?
 Which are the responsible authorities for the design of the instruments and
implementation?
 What changes due to the design of the deposit refund are planned in the near
future? Why?
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INTRODUCTION
This report examines the use of economic instruments: tools that attempt to take
advantage of market forces to prevent pollution and influence behaviour in particular
deposit refund system.
Deposit-refund is a form payment made when purchasing a product. The payment
(deposit) is fully or partially reimbursed when the product containers is returned to the
dealer or send to a specialized treatment facility or recycling plant. This tool is viewed
as a single solution to environmental ills. Deposit-refund systems are appropriate
where the policy objective is not only to discourage the use of the product but also to
encourage its proper disposal.
Most beverage and container packaging such as National Breweries (Zimbabwe),
United Bottlers (Zimbabwe), AFDIS (Zimbabwe) among others have passed bottle
bills requiring retailers to take back for recycling glass, plastic, steel and aluminium
beverage containers. Consumers pay a deposit on the container of Z$500 to Z$1800 at
the time of purchase and receive the refund when the empty container is returned.
Unlike beverage containers, lead-acid batteries operate deposit systems in most areas
were they even drive from one place to another buying used batteries. The lead used
in batteries has positive economic value for battery makers. Deposit amounts are
currently Z$5000-Z$8000. Consumers can obtain rebates by returning a used battery
soon, usually after the purchase of a new one.
There are several economic instruments that have been implemented in Zimbabwe
which include tradable permits, emission charges, tradable rights, deposit refunds,
fees, refund bonds, taxes among others but of major concern in this paper is a deposit
refund because of several benefits attached to it and as a tool for cleaning up the
environment. Zimbabwe is a developing country which is facing high levels of
pollution as the economy grows. Due to the high level of pollution the country needs
some important measure of reducing the problem of pollution like any other
developing country. The problem can only be solved by using the market based
approaches like deposit refunds.
The public is familiar with deposit refund systems because of their wide use in North
America for beverage containers. In this system, a deposit is paid on a soft drink or
beer can or bottle. When pollution is avoided by returning the containers, a refund
follows. [ Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, Environmental
Policy: How to Apply Economic Instruments (Paris: OECD, 1991) at 17. ] Consumers
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lose the deposit if they do not return the product, but are rewarded by the refund when
the item is correctly returned.
Deposit refund systems are appropriate where the policy objective is to encourage
proper disposal, encourage re-use or recycling, or discourage use altogether. Florida
has an advance disposal fee of one cent per container of all containers made of plastic,
glass, plastic-coated paper, or other materials that are not recycled at a rate of at least
fifty percent: Fla. Ste. Ann. 403.7197 (West Supp. 1990) cited in Peter S. Menell
"Beyond the Throwaway Society: An Incentive Approach to Regulating Municipal
Solid Waste," [1990] 17 Ecology Law Quarterly at 655-675. ]or product bans, also
may be necessary.
Deposit refund systems can encourage reuse, but at the very least they provide a
monetary incentive to the consumer to return the product or package, and an
infrastructure for its collection and recycling. Deposit refund systems also exist for
batteries and some hazardous wastes. The payer of the fee can obtain a partial or
complete refund by returning the used product for recycling or proper disposal. Such a
system could be looked upon as a combination of a product charge and a recycling
subsidy. Manufacturers or vendors of products subject to deposits incur additional
costs in handling returned products, but these costs are often partially offset by
interest earned on deposits, unclaimed deposits, and sales of collected used products.
A container deposit system is also effective in increasing environmental awareness. It
emphasises the true value of packaging as a resource, and encourages people to think
about the whole life cycle of the products they buy.
Some of these systems are voluntarily implemented by industry whereas government
requires others. As with most other incentive mechanisms deposit refunds have been
required not by federal government but rather by state or local authorities, although
federal legislation on deposits has been considered. Deposit systems are more costeffective than other methods of waste disposal reduction such as command-andcontrol regulations, recycling subsidies, and advance disposal fees.
Some people hate drunkards but ecologists’ support them now because they are the
ones concerned with environmental protection. They never leave the empty bottle as
they always use them for tomorrow start up.
3
BACK GROUND
The environment has not been taken care of for the past. It was after the negative
environmental problem when the parliament starts to recognize the importance of a
protected environment. In Zimbabwe environmental protection has been under the
government control alone, but now it’s under governmental and non-governmental
organisations. The government protect the environment through Ministry of
Environment and mines, Institute Of Environmental Studies (Under the University of
Zimbabwe), Natural Resource Board and Environmental Impact Assessment Policy.
Zimbabwe has even set up a policy that is the Environmental Policy and an Act
approved by the government, which is The Environmental Management Act. The
nongovernmental organisations include the Environmental Africa, Environmental
2000 among others.
Over the past five years interest in the subject of economic instruments for
environmental protection has grown and intensified. This has partly been in response
to the World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED) in 1987 and
the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in 1992.
Tracing the evolution of government policy for environmental protection shows that it
has gone through similar phases to these meetings. While it was recognized that
economic instruments could be used to protect the environment, regulations were
deemed to be more desirable and efficient (WCED, 1987).
Pollution and other impacts result in the city of Harare (Zimbabwe) being littered
from all corners, the major culprits being the non-biodegradable plastics and bottles. I
really want to emphasizes that introduction of deposit refund system by private firms
which are in recycling became a reliever to the city council which is failing to redress
and collect litter from the streets of Harare. The experience from developed countries
indicates that deposit refund systems are cost-effective instruments for reducing
littering and waste disposal costs and for conserving material inputs.
Container deposit systems are currently operated in numerous countries in World
especially the developed countries in Europe, North America, South America, Asia
and the Middle East as well as parts of the developing world that is African countries.
It is considered to be "worlds best practice" when it comes to recycling of beverage
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containers. In some countries, for example Germany and Canada, deposits also apply
to items like batteries, tyres and electronic goods.
SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY
Experience in the West, and now within Developing countries, shows that
economic instruments offer policy-makers and society a wide range of
benefits.
One is that they give products their real costs, which include production costs
plus external costs, also known as social costs. Social costs include pollution
and other costs to the environment, and if these are not made part of the
product price (or internalised), society will have to pay it elsewhere. As a
result, goods and services can be under-priced, giving false signals to users
and producers, thus leading to the possible wasteful use of societal resources.
It’s more flexible than command-and-control solutions which usually expect
all polluters to reduce their pollution by the same amount (e.g. according to set
regulations). In contrast, they give each polluter a choice - to decide whether it
is cheaper to pay the cost of pollution imposed by the instrument or to pay for
reducing pollution. The result is increased efficiency in reducing pollution and
resource use, as those enterprises with the lowest investment costs for
reducing their pollution and resource use will most likely do so before
enterprises with higher costs.
Deposit refund support the Polluter Pays Principle, which states that polluters
should bear full financial responsibilities for pollution reduction. The principle
is a cornerstone of both EU and OECD environmental policy. It also supports
the User Pays Principle as well as the Precautionary Principle, which demands
that an activity or substance carrying a significant risk of environmental
damage should be generally avoided.
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Drawback with the continuing use of many command-and-control approaches in
Zimbabwe and other Developing countries is their dependency on weak legal systems
for enforcing laws and policies. Large parts of the population simply cannot pay fines
and there is a long backlog of cases in the courts.
OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY
 determining and giving with more precision the list of the products which would
apply to the deposit refund system,
 proposing economic stimulation which is necessary for effective functioning of the
system,

ensuring materials and studies as the basis for compiling the proposal for the
deposit refund system, including economic stimulation,
 collecting the accessible foreign experiences with use of deposit refund systems,
 proposing a way for a legislative amendment of the deposit refund system.
HOW THE REFUND IS CALCULATED
It is not the fact that the producers just come with refunds from their own
approximations. From the research there are certain considerations taken into
account:
 cost of collecting the containers
 cost of cleaning the environment
 cost of buying new containers
 rough estimation of the detriment to the environment
 deposit refund benefits to cost of proper dumping.
6
Note : The is an equilibrium refund reached by the producers after considering both
benefits and cost associated with dumping and collection of containers which is then
charged as the refund to containers sold out with ingredients which can illustrated
diagrammatically below
Cost and benefits
Benefits of
clean up
Equilibriu
m refund
Cost
of
clean up
Containers
collected
RELEVENCE TO OTHER AFRICAN COUNTRIES
Relevant of deposit refund with other developing countries include Tanzania the case
of empty containers of cooking oil. In Tanzania, in other general dealers you would
find that the cooking fats are sold at very low profit margins just to attract people to
purchase the fats and the dealer would sell the containers at higher prices to the actual
manufacturers or to the collectors of the containers especially the metal ones.
South Africa as one of the African countries has embarked on deposit refund system
on the non-biodegradable plastic bags that are given for free on buying goods in big
supermarkets. Plastics are used several times instead of one time and these are
regarded as the major non- biodegradable waste in developing countries. This refund
7
is there to encourage plastic returns to the supermarkets and a discount is deducted
from the actual total amount on the goods. This also encourages proper disposal of
plastics as plastics are a threat to the environment as they are non degradable.
The refund system is not of great importance to Botswana because of the lower
incentive value attached to the refund of 0.25 Pula. People are not concerned about
returning the empties but just throwing them everywhere as long as they do not
disturb them. Also the Botswana used cardboard box shake-shakes for storing beer,
which cannot be reused again. For these containers it is difficult to use deposit refund
system. The cities, Gaborone, Francistown, Palapye among others are all highly
littered with cans (beverage cans), shakes, glass and plastic containers which are not
being returned because of the lower economic incentive attached to the empties.
RELEVENCE TO DEVELOPED COUNTRIES
Effective and efficient environmental management policies to prevent environmental
harm rather than retroactive punishment involving costly and time consuming
activities has been put into place and an example of self regulatory instrument such
as deposit refund should be put into place.
Steve Cole (2001) studies showed that South Australia is currently the only Australian
State to operate a container deposit system for recyclable drink containers. There are
significant environmental, economic and educational benefits in operating such a
system, with little associated cost. At present over 82% of glass and aluminium
containers in South Australia are recycled, significantly higher than in other
Australian states. A container deposit system also gives people further incentive to
hold on to their rubbish, and for people to collect litter themselves. This returns a
saving to ratepayers through reduced cleaning costs. Latest surveys in Australia
showed 97% community support for the container deposit system. Surveys in other
states also indicate strong community support.
Panayotou (1995), Deposit refund systems on beverage containers have been
successful in Finland, Norway and Sweden. The percentage of containers returned is
90% for beer and soft drinks and 70%-80% for wine and liquor while the market
share of non-returnable bottles is kept small less than 5% in Finland. There is
8
evidence to suggest that consumers are responsive to the level of deposit refund, for
example in 1983 Sweden introduced a deposit of ECU0.04 on aluminium beverage
cans which resulted in the return of 60-70% of cans.
Denmark and the Netherlands introduced refundable deposit for batteries with a high
content of cadmium and mercury to control soil contamination
Ontario" (March, 1992), Germany's introduced the "Green Dot" program which have
been very successful in ensuring the return of packaging to manufacturers and
ensuring high levels of recycling. Manufacturers, distributors and retailers are
required to accept packaging for return. Retailers can get an exemption from this
requirement if they participate in a privately funded collection system that guarantees
recycling rates. If retailers do not participate in a private program, deposits are
imposed on sales packaging. As a result of the ordinance German retail and industrial
sectors have formed a company that funds a collection and sorting program. To
participate, companies pay a licensing fee and guarantee to accept and recycle their
packaging. In return they avoid deposits and can mark their products with the green
dot symbol.
Finland has a combination of deposits and taxes on non-returnable beer and soft drink
beverage containers. [Environmental Resources Limited, Organization for Economic
Cooperation and Development, Environmental Policies in Finland]
Refillable
containers as a result of these measures dominate the Finnish market.
The Netherlands has a deposit on glass beverage containers backed up by a product
tax on non-refillable plastic beverage containers. It also has a voluntary deposit refund
scheme on refillable bottles.
Switzerland has a mandatory deposit refund system for refillable beverage containers
backed up by a statutory requirement for reduction of beverage containers tonnage in
waste and a product tax on beverage containers. [Environmental Resources Limited].
Plastic containers are also banned unless their disposal meets standards for safe
disposal of five hazardous substances.
Denmark has a deposit charge on beer and soft drink containers. This charge is
backed up by a ban on nonrefillable beverage containers that were domestically
produced, as well as a sliding scale of product taxes on packaging for liquids to
9
encourage the use of returnable containers for recycling and reduce consumption of
disposable packaging. [Environmental Resources Limited,]
Sweden has a deposit refund system for glass beverage containers as well as for
aluminium cans. An increase in the deposit on the cans in 1987, from US $.05 to $.09,
has led to the current return rate of 85%, the highest rate for these cans in Europe.
Sweden has also prohibited the use of non-refillable containers as of July 1, 1991, and
is considering bans on other plastic packaging. [Environmental Resources Limited,
McCarthy, 319.] Sweden requires producers of plastic bottles to establish deposit
refund systems and establish that 90% of the plastic bottles can be recycled or reused.
[Makuch,] The Swedish parliament is currently considering an extension of this
requirement to importers.
REQUIREMENTS FOR DEPOSIT REFUND SYSTEM
Deposit refund systems include relatively simple Product deposits and Substance
deposit refund systems. A product deposit refund is payable on the sale and return of
beverage containers, car bodies, batteries, and pesticide containers. In a substance
deposit refund system the refund is paid despite substantial changes in the form of the
substance.
Enabling legislation for product deposit refund systems should:
 have broad power to implement deposit refunds for different products;
 provide for restrictions on when products are eligible for refund;
 provide for product charges and product bans;
 allow for regulation of labelling requirements; and
 include sufficient offence provisions to guard against refund fraud.
Some additional provisions necessary for substance deposit refund systems
include:
 power to define acceptable disposal by regulations and provide mechanisms to
determine acceptable disposal;
 provision for import levies and export refunds in lieu of substance deposits
and refunds; and
10
 provision for a central agency to delegate different functions to appropriate
agencies. For instance, customs and excise officials are already trained to
collect excise taxes on the primary production and import of substances such
as alcohol and would be well suited to collect substance deposits and provide
refunds on export.
MATERIALS FOR ANALYSIS
Batteries
When a battery dies, it ceases to be a convenient, portable source of energy and
becomes a waste issue. Lead-acid car batteries have three major components: lead,
acid and plastic. Household batteries, depending on their type, contain mercury,
silver, cadmium, lithium and other heavy metals, as well as highly corrosive acids.
Clearly, it makes sense to reduce the number of batteries we use and to keep them out
of the landfills by recycling what we can. When a car battery is recycled, 100% of the
lead can be reclaimed and used in a new battery indefinitely. The acid can be recycled
and used in new batteries. It can also be converted to sodium sulfate, a product used in
fertilizer, dyes and other products.
A deposit refund of about Z$1800-Z$8000 is given to individuals when they return
used batteries. This has become a source of income of other people as they collect the
batteries from who do not care about the refund and sell them to battery producers for
an income incentive.
Glass
All glass beverage containers are returnable to Delta Beverages (United Bottlers and
National breweries), AFDIS Distillers under the Beverage Containers Program. On
average, a refillable glass bottle can be reused up to 15 times before it's melted down
to make new glass products. Recycling one glass bottle can save enough energy to
light a 100-watt light bulb for four hours.
11
Glass is heavy, however, so it's expensive to collect, handle and transport for
recycling. At times, low prices for recycled glass "cullet" mean that our Solid Waste
Commissions can't find a viable market for non returnable glass like jars, windows,
drinking glasses, and so on. The glass may be crushed, in that case, and used to cover
over other garbage or build roads at the landfill site.
Beverage cans
Containers covered by this program are:
o Soft drinks
o Beer, wine and spirits
o Flavoured waters
o Mineral waters
o Fruit juices
o Vegetable juices
o Low alcohol drinks
Collecting returnable beverage containers is a great way for schools and community
groups to raise extra money.
Beverage cans are collected across the town under the Beverage Containers Program,
and food cans are recyclable in some regions. Aluminium is a particularly valuable
recyclable, because recycled aluminium is as good as if it were made from new
material. It can be melted down and recycled many times over. About 89% of the
beverage cans used in Canada are made of aluminium. In the landfill, they would take
about 300 years to break down. Recycled to make new cans, they can save 95% of the
energy it would take to process new aluminium. Each recycled aluminium can saves
enough to light a 100-watt bulb for 20 hours.
Other beverage cans are made of steel, as are "tin" food cans. Steel can be recycled
into cans, bicycles, machine parts, and even new cars. When a steel mill uses recycled
scrap instead of iron ore, it can reduce the related water pollution and mining wastes
by over 70%, and save energy too.
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Benefits and Constraints of Refund system:
Deposit-refund schemes have built-in economic incentives similar to charges. For
example, the 'deposit' is an attempt to force the consumer to account for the cost of
improper waste disposal by making an upfront payment. On the other hand, the
'refund ' serves as a reward for proper waste disposal.
Benefits includes:

It is a voluntary scheme that attempts to change environmental behaviour at
least cost to the government

Monitoring and enforcement costs are minimal because it requires limited
supervision.

The high level of reuse and recycling means that resources are conserved and
the waste stream reduced. Recycling also has social benefits in the form of
income redistribution of sections of the population with no formal
employment.

The system can be used to encourage recycling and more efficient use of raw
materials. For example, the 'deposit' can be considered as a tax to encourage
firms to use raw materials more efficiently, while the 'refund' encourages them
to properly dispose of their waste products.
However there are problems associated with the instrument which include:

If refunds are too low, the public may not have an incentive to participate in
the scheme.

Although the use of deposit refund systems could be greatly expanded, they
are not a complete answer to diverting waste from landfills or avoiding toxic
pollution.

Deposit refund system may result in deposit fraud that may take many forms:
false invoices, misrepresentation of goods, faulty classification of products,
altering of import specifications, and smuggling from third countries.

A high deposit provides an incentive for entrepreneurs from neighbouring
jurisdictions to bring bottles, cans, etc. across the boundary to collect the
deposit.
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
Manufacturers or vendors of products subject to deposits incur additional costs
in handling returned products.
HOW TO TEST THE SIGNIFICANCE OF DEPOSIT REFUND SYSTEM
Data collection
Data has been collected by use of questionnaires on the large supermarkets on their
deposit refunding to those who return the empty bottles. Its basically field data and
partly by use of secondary data collected from ministry of health and from firms
(United Bottlers, National Breweries, AFDIS, Exide etc)
Setting hypothesis
There is a high responsiveness of change in containers returned after a change in the
deposit refund.
H0 El = 0
H1 El > 1
ELASTICITIES
The elasticity is the responsiveness of a change in the quantity of material returned for
deposit refunds due to a change in the deposit refunds. It can be taken to mean
proportionate change in quantity returned due to proportionate change in deposit
refunds. The elasticity has been computed using the following formula
El =
% change in quantity returned
% change in deposit refund
The actual impact is shown by the elasticities as computed below showing the
responsiveness of the stakeholders on year to year due to changes in deposit refunds.
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Table 1:Elasticities of the materials to change in refunds
year
EL for beverages
El for batteries
1991
0.893981
0.009527
1992
0.703102
0.806685
1993
0.673615
0.118852
1994
0.854622
0.329075
1995
1.808527
0.174472
1996
1.651046
0.090434
1997
1.49274
0.064223
1998
3.153346
0.137134
1999
1.392326
0.40017
2000
1.052202
0.063607
2001
1.495962
0.276522
2002
1.91992
0.067798
2003
1.425351
0.070909
1990
In terms of beverages there are only four years that is from 1991-1994, which shows
inelastic elasticity of return, the elasticity being less than 1 (El<1). For the other years
from 1995 to 2003 they all show elastic return meaning a small change in the deposit
refund results in a greater number of containers returned by the consumers. The
consumers are highly responsive to changes in deposit refunds with the greatest
impact of responsiveness in 1998 of 3.15 as the economy faced a big shock in terms
of the purchasing power of the Zimbabwean dollars in 1997 due to grants paid to War
Veterans and the greatest shock to the external value of the Zimbabwean dollar, that is
the exchange rate. People were trying to supplement their incomes from extra income
earned from refunds and simple collections as they were used in this dissertation as
refunds; they start to care about the empties (beverages), used batteries and plastics as
a source of income. The second highest impact was in 2002 having elastic result of
1.92, this was a drought year at the same time there was a rise in the deposit refund so
people were trying to maximize from these refunds to supplement income.
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Batteries elasticities are inelastic showing a less responsiveness of number of bottles
returned due to change in deposit refund. Maybe this is due to the fact that the users of
batteries are car owners who are rich people who do not actually return the battery for
refund but because its of no use to them, thus they do not care about the change in the
deposit refund. In other circumstances the people will not see the effect because an
old battery is just removed from the car and a new one being put in place at the
garage. The cost of work and the battery can be charged at once, so the car owner can
just pay at once without seeing the effect of a refund. But the fact that there are
elasticities people are responsive although being less responsive to changes in
batteries deposit refunds.
CONCLUSION
From the results deposit refunds are highly important to beverage containers as they
show elastic response by the stakeholders but for batteries they show inelastic
response. Deposit refunds are therefore important instruments of reducing
environmental damage. Plastics, which contribute a significant proportion of solid
waste, still need some more restrictive policies other than simple collection as applied
in the model.
Recycling as indirectly influenced by deposit refunds can also be a way of reducing
solid waste hence reduction in environmental damage, but an increase in cost of
recycling promote environmental damage as recyclers prefer to leave some materials
destroying the environment than incurring high cost of recycling them. The greater
the total plastic paper collected the greater the reduction in solid waste, the higher the
level of environmental protection.
However deposit refunds as a way of reducing solid waste are seen as having the
following problems. Deposit schemes are believed to cost more to administer than
other programs such as charge system as it is in terms of per unit of container while
charge system is charged as a flat rate per month for the collection by the
municipality.
Another complaint about economic environmental management instruments is that
they affect the competitiveness of industries. This is more of a political problem. On
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the other side, there should be mechanisms to compensate for the economic cost of
environmental protection. In other words, there should be incentives for good
behaviour not just focusing on deposit refunds, as they are not applied on all products,
which result in high volumes of solid waste from those products without refunds that
lead to environmental damage.
RECOMMENDATIONS
Deposit refunds alone cannot be effective in reducing the solid waste in the City of
Harare although the policy instrument has proved to be effective especially on
returnable materials to reduce the environmental damage caused by those materials. In
light of the above, it is essential to put forward a sound institutional arrangement for
Harare municipality that involves community and private sector (including the partial
privatization of collection service to contractors) in the city's Waste management, as
no single government agency acting alone, can ensure comprehensive implementation
and effectiveness. This collaboration can help ensure that each and every move fits
into an integrated system designed for promoting public health, environmental
protection, economic efficiency and good governance.
Legislation in the form of city council by-laws should provide for deposit refund
systems for a variety of products and substances and for the levels of deposits and
refunds to be prescribed by regulation.
Enabling legislation should allow Harare municipality to establish product charges by
regulation. Charges could be used to ensure that deposit refund systems do not cause
consumers to choose competing non-reusable products. Charges also could be used to
encourage voluntary deposit refund systems.
Product bans may be an important tool in a deposit refund system. The enabling
legislation should include the power to establish a ban on products that will
undermine the purpose of a deposit refund scheme for example the ban of shakes in
the early 1990s when the Scud was first introduced for packaging opaque beer.
17
The legislation should clearly state the Harare Municipality's power to claim any
unclaimed refunds, to use either to pay for administering the system or to fund other
environmental activities.
By-laws should provide for administrative fees that fully recover administrative costs.
Substance deposit refund systems can entail significant administrative costs, although
these have been estimated as less than the significant environmental benefits that
result..
The producers should advocate for increased outlets for collection points. As a
research carried out the researcher found out that in most busy retail outlets there are
no deposit refunds in the Central Business District (CBD) of Harare. This also reduce
the willingness to carry out empty containers and change on other shops thereby
causing the dumping of these containers everywhere because of high cost associated
with carrying the containers for long distances.
18
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