in the remainder of the empirical part of this study we deal with the developed and developed countries separately. Two similar regressions for both groups of countries are performed. Alternatively, we could have decided not to split the sample, and use a dummy for each developing country. But, structural differences between the two country groups probably exist at several levels. Besides a dummy for the intercept, dummies for each of the exogenous variables would be needed. while still statistically feasible, this would seriously hamper easy and intuitive interpretation of the estimation results. Therefore we postpone meticulous investigation of the exact difference between the two country-groups,and the significance, for future research. Instead, we focus on the causes of changes in recycling and trade within the group developing countries. Conclusions about the differences between the developing and developed world,based on the regression results presented below, are therefore tentative.