‘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.