1. Introduction
The European Environmental Agency (EEA) acknowledges that waste volumes in
the European Union (EU) are growing (EEA 2009), driven by changing production
and consumption patterns (Andersen et al. 2007), and it highlights the importance of
flexible implementation of market-based instruments (EEA 2006) to achieve higher
degrees of decoupling. ‘Absolute’ and ‘relative’ decoupling indicators – the former
being a negative relationship between income/economic growth and environmental
impact and the latter being a positive but decreasing-in-size relationship – are
mentioned by EU ‘thematic strategies’ on resources and waste (European
Commission 2003a, 2003b, Jacobsen et al. 2004). The achievement of some degree
of decoupling is of prime importance for waste given that evidence for the EU (EEA
2009) shows an absence of absolute decoupling (Figure 1) for waste generation.
Policy effectiveness and spatial phenomena are interrelated and are very important
for achieving waste targets through effective (diffusion) of waste policies in intrinsic
decentralised frameworks, in terms of policy implementation and management.