Poor Management of Processing Wastes:
Policy Pressures and Policy Options

The policy pressures that contribute to the environmental problems associated with processing wastes include:

- Economies of scale that encourage the use of a large volume of inputs leading to a large volume of outputs including waste
- The concentration of production and processing close to areas of demand which tend to be highly populated areas, creating problems of waste disposal
- Inappropriate input and output pricing policies including income support schemes and subsidies
- Inappropriate or non-existent regulatory policies that fail to respect local natural resource management and environmental needs
- Inappropriate health and safety policies
- Inappropriate financial policies on various inputs, exchange rate and import/export policies

Policy options that can lessen the risk of processing wastes in these systems are

Environmental regulation:

- Improvements in waste management - the polluter pays
- Banning or limiting the use of certain processing inputs e.g. chemicals
- Regulatory policies to reduce level of emissions including safe minimum standards

Zoning policies to encourage relocation away from urban residential areas – establishment of industrial parks with infrastructure to handle waste e.g. Common Effluent Treatment Plants (CETP)

Development and introduction of Good Management Practices (GMP)

Adapting pricing, subsidy and taxation policies to ensure recovery of full cost of goods and services,

Hypothecation of taxes for use in improving livestock production, processing and environmental interactions

Investment incentives/transitional subsidies to encourage improvements in infrastructure to reduce emissions and encourage processors to move quickly to new minimum standards

Encouragement of R & D to both limit and increase the utilisation of waste.

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