Reflecting the concerns over environmental sustainability, there has been an increasing focus on the protection of our water resources and on the proper management of our waste. Our economic growth can only be sustainable when it does not represent a threat to human health and to fauna, flora, and eco-system in the long-term. A long-term resilience, new business and economic opportunities, and environmental sustainability can be achieved through circular economy model that offers us a world of opportunity to rethink and redesign our economic activities and consumption patterns. With an aim to give the reader a new perspective on this issue, this book covers European Union’s water and waste management legislation and the Czech Republic’s transposition of this legislation, and includes a comparative analysis of the performances of the EU Member States on the implementation of new water and waste management policy strategies.

This book focuses on education for environmental sustainability, in particular the area of solid waste management. Presenting the latest studies from different countries, industries and education sectors on the approaches and innovative ideas to educate future citizens regarding sustainable development of our planet, it is of interest to educators, academics, tertiary students, policy-makers, environmental scientists, social scientists and practitioners who have been involved in education, policy, science, and technological innovation for solid waste management.

As prosperity levels rise, so too does the number of products and services being consumed. For policy makers in waste management facing a growing challenge, it is vital to understand the complex relationship between waste prevention policies and individual behaviour regarding waste generation. This book examines that interplay, taking a close look at the role of motivation, difficulties, values and constraints. The first part of the book explores the theoretical framework, policy, barriers and facilitators for waste prevention behaviour. The second part presents in-depth case studies from three cities (Sao Paulo, Sheffield and Tokyo) examining the contextual factors, behavioural variations among them and the role of motivation and constraints in their populations. The book provides a detailed picture of how waste prevention policies enter the private, domestic sphere, offering insights for generating behavioural change at the household level and thus moving larger communities towards sustainable waste management. The book will be of interest to students and researchers in the areas of environmental policy, management, sociology, psychology, geography, technology and waste studies.

The first edition of Public Policies for Environmental Protection contributed significantly to the incorporation of economic analysis in the study of environmental policy. Fully revised to account for changes in the institutional, legal, and regulatory framework of environmental policy, the second edition features updated chapters on the EPA and federal regulation, air and water pollution policy, and hazardous and toxic substances. It includes entirely new chapters on market-based environmental policies, global climate change, solid waste, and, for the first time, coverage of the Safe Drinking Water Act. Portney, Stavins, and their contributors provide an invaluable resource for researchers, policymakers, industry professionals, and journalists---anyone who needs up-to-date information on U.S. environmental policy. With their careful explanation of policy alternatives, the authors provide an ideal book for students in courses about environmental economics or environmental politics.

The first edition of this pragmatic course text emphasized the policy value of a "big picture" approach to the ethical, political, technological, scientific, economic, and management aspects of environmental issues. The text then applied this approach to real-world case examples involving leaks in underground storage tanks, toxic waste cleanup, and the effects of global climate change. This second edition demonstrates the ongoing effectiveness of the book's framework in generating meaningful action and policy solutions to current environmental issues. The text adds case examples concerning congestion taxes, e-waste, hydrofracking, and recent developments in global climate change, updating references and other materials throughout and incorporating the political and policy changes of the Obama administration's first term and developments in national and global environmental issues.

This research deals with the increasingly complex issues of waste generation, waste management and waste disposal that in less developed industrialised countries present diverse but critical concerns. It takes a socio-economic and policy-oriented perspective and provides empirical evidence at EU and regional level. The EU and Italy are taken as relevant case studies given the disparities in environmental performances between less and more developed areas. The rich and various empirical evidence shows that a robust delinking between waste generation and economic growth is still not present, thus future policies should directly address the problem at the source by targeting waste generation in EU countries. Some structural factors like population density and urbanisation present themselves as relevant drivers of both waste management and landfill diversion. Nevertheless, economic and structural factors alone are not sufficient to improve waste performances. Though waste policies are to be redesigned by covering the entire area of waste management, some first signals of policy effectiveness are arising. This work will be of most interest to those students of environmental economics and environmental sciences, as well as policy makers, waste utility managers and companies in the waste management sector.