Economic Analysis Of The Treatment Of Municipal Garbage In China

With the rapid development of China's economy, the speeding-up of urbanization process, and the improvement of people's living standard, the amount of municipal garbage has been increased dramatically. The environmental pollution caused by municipal garbage is getting more and more serious, becoming one of the obstacles hindering China's economic sustainability, and has caused the whole society's concern.In early days, the size of the city was rather small, and generated small amount of municipal garbage. The component of the garbage was simple, mainly the organic substances such as dust soil and vegetables. They were easily decomposed under natural conditions. Although the treatment technologies were quite simple at that time, the harm of the municipal garbage towards environment was not so obvious. With the dramatic increase of urban population and the improvement of living standard, the amount of garbage increased and the composition was complicated. The amount of inorganic substances and toxic and hazardous residue in the garbage increased. This increased difficulty for the collection, sorting, transportation and treatment of municipal garbage. The inappropriate treatment technology could affect the urban landscape, occupy space, pollute soil and ground water, influent air quality, spread diseases and affects people's health. This problem has caused great attention of the world. As indicated in the 1998 World Resources Report conducted by UNDP, UNEP and World Resources Research Institute, municipal garbage would be the most important environmental problem in the 21st century and the treatment of municipal garbage would be one of the brightest industries in the 21st century. The level of the treatment of municipal garbage has been an important symbol to measure a country or a city's civilization degree, the environmental awareness of the city's management, and the urbanization and modernization of the city.In the past, the government was responsible for the treatment of municipal garbage and born the treatment cost. This management system was adopted in the period of planning economy. Due to this, in the selection of garbage treatmentfacilities, meeting environmental standard was the major concern. The consideration of least cost and maximum profit was neglected. This greatly violated the economic principle of market economy. With the gradual increase of the garbage amount, the government could not afford such a high treatment cost and made such a new type of rising industry into a vicious circle.This thesis makes economic analysis on the municipal garbage treatment through comprehensive application of the principles of economics, sustainable development strategy, environmental economics, technical economics, industrial economics, economic management and policy studies. On the basis of modem marginal opportunity cost theory, applying green input output accounting theory, the green input output economic analysis was conducted with the integration of resources, economy and environment. Then, the concept of Life Cycle Analysis and Circular Economy as well as the industrial ecological theories is also used with the combination of China's real situation. Thorough analysis of comprehensive accounting of green taxation, resources, energy, economy and environment was conducted to seek for the environmental friendly way to use natural resources and environmental capacity and realize the ecological conversion of economic activities. The 3R principles (reducing, reuse and recycling) are suggested to use in the treatment of municipal garbage. The reuse and recycle of municipal garbage should be paid attention in order to realize the recycle of the materials and energy in the consumption process or after the consumption process. Only by doing this, the win-win situation of environment and economy could be realized. The economic policy of the garbage treatment is one of the important environmental policies. By analyzing current management policy for the treatment of municipal garbage, it is suggested, by using eco...