Waste Facilities in Residential Communities: Impacts and Acceptance

Abstract

Large metropolitan areas experience resistance to waste disposal facilities because of physical and social impacts on typical rural host communities. The perception of the impacts is amplified by the perceived lack of host‐community control, familiarity, confidence and the unfair distribution of the facility benefits and costs. The small benefits that accrue to the host community do not offset the losses. To develop incentives for the host community to accept the facility, impacts are combined to define the acceptance criterion. This criterion requires that the net impacts (i.e., the total impacts minus the benefits) be minimized to within the narrow tolerance range of the host community. Acceptance, therefore, can be achieved either by reducing the impacts or increasing the benefits to the host community. Since losses are generally perceived to outweigh gains, the reduction rather than the compensation of the losses to the host community is hypothesized to be the most effective method of achieving facility acceptance. This hypothesis is validated by analyzing 22 case studies of facility siting attempts.