The Costs and Environmental Justice Concerns of NIMBY in Solid Waste Disposal

Many recent US Congresses have proposed bills that allow state and local governments to restrict interjurisdictional waste shipments. Using data on intercounty waste flows in California and a random utility model of haulers’ decisions about where to deposit waste from each county, this study examines the economic costs of import bans and import taxes and the implications on the distribution of waste disposal by race (and ethnicity). I find that NIMBY-motivated laws would reduce intercounty waste transport at substantial economic cost. Furthermore, a NIMBY law enacted in a county, despite reducing the county’s imports, could increase total intercounty waste in the whole state, generating additional external costs of transportation. A universal import ban in all counties would reduce transboundary waste, but it would lead to substitution of waste away from facilities near white residents and toward facilities near Hispanic residents, exacerbating distributional concerns.