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Theses and Dissertations

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Browsing Theses and Dissertations by Subject "aggregates materials"

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    A computable general equilibrium analysis of aggregates materials recycling and waste disposal policy alternatives
    (Colorado State University. Libraries, 2009) Miller, Michael D., author; Davies, Stephen, advisor; Cutler, Harvey, advisor
    The work presented in this dissertation is intended to provide community leaders insights into possible aggregates material disposal and recycling policy alternatives. In this work four main policy alternatives are examined-a tax on landfill deposits, a subsidy for the purchase of recycled aggregates materials, a requirement that all industries in the community increase their consumption of recycled aggregates, and a requirement that the top five producers of aggregates waste supply greater amounts of materials to recycling facilities. The scenarios reported include "base case" situations and sensitivity analysis. For the sensitivity analysis, there are changes in the levels of taxation, subsidy, required use of the recycled materials, and required supply waste to be recycled. Additionally, the percentage of materials being sent to landfill and the percentage of materials being recycled is adjusted in order to measure the impacts of the tax and subsidy on communities with differing levels of recycling already in place. Two other policy alternatives are also analyzed and briefly discussed: (1) The model is allowed to respond to changes in the prices of intermediate goods; and (2) Tax and subsidy rates are changed simultaneously. This dissertation finds that, as a result of the limited economic impact of the aggregates materials industry (compared to the local economy in total), landfill deposit taxes and materials purchase subsidies have little impact on the community's economic well being. However, due to the rather "painless" nature of these policies, implementation of these policies do not preclude their use in laying the groundwork for other, more impactful solid waste material disposal approaches. The implementation of the two regulatory policy alternatives has significant positive impacts throughout the economy, but carries with them greater unknown liabilities that are beyond the scope of this dissertation.