Tourism and solid waste generation in Europe: A panel data assessment of the Environmental Kuznets Curve

• Published in: Waste management (Elmsford) Vol. 46; pp. 628 - 636
• Main Authors: Arbulú, Italo, Lozano, Javier, Rey-Maquieira, Javier
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Elsevier Ltd 01.12.2015
• Subjects: Assessments; developing countries; Economics; environmental assessment; Environmental Kuznets Curve; Europe; Expenditures; income elasticities; Management; Models, Econometric; Municipal solid waste; Nonlinearity; Panels; Refuse Disposal; Solid Waste - analysis; Solid Waste - economics; Tourism; Travel; Waste generation; Waste management; Waste Management - economics; Europe; ANE, Europe; Tourism; Environmental Kuznets Curve; Waste generation; Municipal solid waste
• ISSN: 0956-053X; 1879-2456
• DOI: 10.1016/j.wasman.2015.04.014

•Environmental Kuznets Curve hypothesis for municipal solid waste generation.•Assessment of the impact of tourism on municipal solid waste generation.•Different effects of tourism volume, tourism quality and tourism specialization on MSW generation.•Fixed effect panel data analysis for EU countries. The relationship between tourism growth and municipal solid waste (MSW) generation has been, until now, the subject of little research. This is puzzling since the tourism sector is an important MSW generator and, at the same time, is willing to avoid negative impacts from MSW mismanagement. This paper aims to provide tools for tourism and MSW management by assessing the effects of tourism volume, tourism quality and tourism specialization on MSW generation in the UE. This is done using the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) framework. The study considers a panel data for 32 European economies in the 1997–2010 periods. Empirical results support the EKC hypothesis for MSW and shows that northern countries tend to have lower income elasticity than less developed countries; furthermore, results confirm a non-linear and significant effect of tourism arrivals, expenditure per tourist and tourism specialization on MSW generation.