The waste disposal activity conducted by the JV Companies
of this research has changed greatly in the last
40 years. The original core activity of simply collecting and
disposing of trash now includes an enormous environmental
responsibility. In this 40-year period, many new
laws have been enacted that specify how municipalities
should handle ecologically harmful waste. These laws have
required municipalities to make major investments in both
knowledge and facilities, including, for example, combustion
facilities (Östman, 2008).
Three laws enacted in Sweden during the 1970s are
especially important. The Environmental Protection Act
placed stiffer requirements on final waste disposal. As a
result, many Swedish waste disposal facilities closed. In
1972 the Waste Disposal Act gave Swedish municipalities
a monopoly on handling the increasing amount of
household waste along with the right to charge customers
for the collection service. The Waste Disposal Act of 1979
required municipalities to recycle electronic, organic and
combustible goods.
Following such legislation, Swedish municipalities
began working cooperatively to find solutions for waste
disposal. The principal impetus for this cooperation was to
take advantage of economies of scale for the needed investments
in new facilities and knowledge. Cooperation was
sometimes organized through joint ownership of standalone
companies that collected the compulsory fees for
waste removal (Persson, 2006). By 2006, there were 15
such companies in Sweden that were owned by more than
one municipality. The geographical proximity of certain
municipalities made such cooperation practical. These
companies could also offer their services to the industrial
sector. The result was an increasingly complex business
that required investments in machinery, disposal sites and
knowledge.