Waste Not, Want Not: Economic and Legal Challenges of Regulation-Induced Innovation in Waste Technology and Management

Molly Macauley, Resources for the Future

Abstract

Regulation to protect public health and the environment has transformed the “town dump” into large, regional state-of-the art waste disposal facilities managed by a nationwide industry with revenues of over $40 billion annually. Responsibility for waste regulation rests with state and local authorities, however, and their intervention in price, quantity, and location attributes of the market has prompted legal challenges under the dormant commerce clause. This article reviews the regulation-induced changes in the market, its subnational governmental oversight, and protection of interstate commerce when new technology restructures a local service into a national business.