Efficient three industrial waste abatement for regions in China

Abstract

This paper computes efficient three industrial waste abatements (solid, water and gas) for 30 regions in China from 1996-2003. Data envelopment analysis (DEA) with a single output (real GDP) and five inputs (labour, real capital stock, solid wastes, waste water and waste gas) is used to compute the target wastes of each region for each year. The efficient abatement ratios of each region in each year are then obtained by comparing the actual waste to the actual waste of a pollutant. Our major findings are: 1. The east area contains the most efficient regions with respect to the three wastes in everyyear during the research period. 2. The east, central and west areas have 1996-2003 average target abatement ratios of solid wastes of 24.90%, 64.77% and 62.33%, ofwaste water 14.27%, 27.45% and 32.01%, and of waste gas 18.42%, 43.21% and 46.66%, respectively. 3. Because the central and west areas have similar critical problems on the three wastes, China is actually divided into two parts considering the three wastes. 4. Compared with the cases of waste water and gas, solid waste reduction is China's most urgent task.