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establishment in turn called for further legislation from which it derives its “hierarchy of
authority and the formal allocation of tasks and responsibilities”.
3. Institutional matrix for the sanitation sector
The application of a holistic view of the concept of institutions to the sanitation sector
reveals a two-by-two institutional matrix with the two columns representing institutions and
organisations and the two rows partitioning them (institutions and organisations) into
formal and informal hemispheres as shown in Table 1. Institutions Organisations
Formal
 Policies
 Laws
 Regulations
 Guidelines
 Codes
 Standards, etc.
 Government Ministries, Departments
and Agencies
 Municipal authorities
 Private sector organisations
 Non-governmental organisations
(NGOs)
 External support agencies, etc.
Informal
 Customs
 Beliefs


Institutional Matrix for Sustainable Waste Management

27
While each of the segments of the matrix has a potential influence over the others, formal
institutions are the most powerful. This can be explained by the fact that formal
institutions decide which informal institutions or constraints can be adopted, tolerated or
outlawed since governments can restrain by law what is culturally acceptable or
technically feasible. For instance, many developing countries have enacted laws to ban the
use of the pan or bucket latrine, which has been practised by some communities for
several years. Consequently, this option for excreta disposal has given way to better
practices and the organisational framework, both formal and informal, within which it
was carried out has collapsed. Again, many nations have formally outlawed female
genital mutilation, which has been practised by some cultures for centuries. Such is the
strength of formal institutions.
3.2 Informal institutions
Informal institutions can be best described as the unwritten rules which govern behaviour
(Helmke & Levitsky, 2004). These are the unofficial arrangements, which exist in society
or organisations and influence the standard of acceptable or objectionable conduct. They
often manifest themselves in traditions and cultural practices that are performed by the
members of a society. They have been in existence for centuries and are a reflection of the
deep-seated traditional value system of people and can be reflected in the formal
institutional framework of a society (e.g. constitutions, laws, legal mechanisms) (Helmke
& Levitsky, 2004).
In the environmental sanitation sector, informal institutions and constraints are major
determinants of the commitments of various stakeholders to the enforcement of and
compliance with formal institutions (Vogler, 2003). They influence such critical factors as
attitudes to personal hygiene, waste disposal practices, willingness to pay for services,
commitments to public interests and law enforcement, respect for sanitation professionals,
etc. The impact of informal institutions and constraints on the sanitation sector is generally

management services within a framework defined by formal institutions. Thus, formal
organisations are subject to formal institutions which may be promulgated by the self-same
organisation. This illustrates the paradox of institutional-organisational relationships:
institutions are evolved by bodies or organisations – be they state departments, ministries,
commissions or the parliament – but all bodies or organisations are themselves built on and
governed by institutions.
Direct waste management service delivery has often been a shared responsibility between
state and private organisations, engendering a wide range of public-private partnerships.
Water and Sanitation for Health [WASH] (1991) notes that the pressures to become more
efficient and effective are changing the role of the government from that of a provider to a
promoter and regulator. For instance, Obeng et al (2009) studied the impact of Ghana’s
Environmental Sanitation Policy on the institutional structures for solid waste management
in Kumasi, the nation’s second largest city. The study found that the major change that had
occurred in the organisational structure for the management of solid waste in the city since
the inception of the policy in 1999 was the involvement of the private sector in service
delivery under the supervision and monitoring of the Waste Management Department
(WMD) of the Metropolitan Assembly (see also Cook & Ayee, 2006).
3.4 Informal organisations
Informal organisations are groups with some common interests or aspirations who may not
be officially established or registered by the national or local government but can be
recognised as stakeholders in the delivery of waste management services due to their
potential to affect the chances of successful service delivery positively or negatively. They
include community-based organisations, pressure groups, opinion leaders, traditional
leaders, gender groups, local religious bodies, etc.
The potential of informal organisations to affect the chances of sustainable service delivery
has gained much attention in recent times, leading to the high emphasis that is currently
laid on effective community participation in service delivery in developing countries
(Menegat, 2002). Stakeholder analysis for community participation helps to identify all
interest groups in the community, assess the conditions for their involvement in order to
attract each group to fully participate in identification, planning and implementation of

Organisation [UNESCO], 1996). Sustainable development then refers to a pattern of resource
utilisation that seeks to meet human needs while preserving the environment so that these
needs can be met in the present as well as in the future (Valverde, 2008). The term has come
to encompass the economic, environmental and social realms (Hasna, 2007). It also includes
the bio-chemical and physical dimensions (Gupta and van der Zaag, 2008).
This has informed the views of sustainability as the ‘triangular view’ which treats
sustainability as being triple-dimensional, with three components addressing the need to
sustain the environment, economy and society (Kajikawa, 2008; Rogers et al, 2008). Thus,
Kajikawa (2008) describes the triangular view as including the three-pillar model in which
the three pillars refer to the economy, the environment, and society (Kastenhofer and
Rammel, 2005) and the triple-bottom-line model (People, Planet, Profit) or P3 (People,
Prosperity, and the Planet) (Zimmerman, 2005). It can be argued then that a sustainable
system or development is one which satisfies environmental sustainability (the
sustainability of the planet), economic sustainability (the sustainability of prosperity or
profit) and social sustainability (the sustainability of the values and cultures of people).
Thus, a sustainable waste management system is one oriented at attaining all three
components of sustainability: environmental, economic and social. It is important that each
of the three components is given equal attention and priority in order to ensure sustainable
outcomes (Rogers et al, 2008).
4.2 Institutions and environmental sustainability in waste management
In simple terms, environmental sustainability implies that human developments or activities
such as waste disposal should not hinder the ability of biological and physical systems to
maintain their ecological resilience or robustness (Rogers et al, 2008). That is, levels of
harvest should be maintained within the capacity of the ecosystem (Kajikawa, 2008). In

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waste management, environmental sustainability implies that, the rates of deposition of
pollutants should be maintained within the rate at which the ecosystem can safely absorb or

Union, 2008) and the Directive (2002/96/EC) on waste electrical and electronic
equipment (WEEE) (European Union, 2003); and
 international conventions such as the Basel Convention on the Control of
Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and their Disposal (Basel
Convention, 2010).
Arguably, the worst form of failure in securing the sustainability of the environment is the
absence of formal institutions, at least on paper, to prohibit certain forms of actions and
inactions which threaten the survival of vital ecosystems. Hence, the analysis and diagnosis
of the overall institutional framework is recognised as the first step in the institutional
development process in the water and sanitation sector (DFID, 2003) and, for that matter, in
the field of waste management. One of the major factors which account for the differences in
waste management in the developed and the developing world lies in the existence of

Institutional Matrix for Sustainable Waste Management

31
formal institutions. For example, with respect to electronic waste, Zhao et al, (2009) note that
developing countries have no laws or relaxed legislations.
4.2.2 Formal organisations and environmental sustainability
As custodians of formal institutions, formal organisations – including legislative assemblies,
environmental protection and regulatory agencies, local authorities and waste management
companies – are not only involved in the promulgation of formal institutions but also see to
their implementation and enforcement. Research and academic ‘institutions’, as they are
commonly referred to, are among the formal organisations which work hand in hand with
waste management practitioners in the development of environmentally sustainable
technologies.
The commitment and capacities of formal organisations existing in a nation are key
determinants of the kind of formal institutions which would be developed and the extent
to which they (formal institutions) are implemented and enforced or rather remain
dormant. Private companies, for instance, seek to minimise operational costs in order to


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4.2.4 Informal organisations and environmental sustainability
Informal organisations, like their formal counterparts, are the custodians of informal
institutions and play a role in applying them to protect the environment. Again in
developing countries, where the low capacity of formal regulatory and policing
organisations does not allow a close monitoring of communities and private organisations,
informal organisations such as community watchdog committees and gender groups could
be empowered to monitor compliance to formal and positive informal institutions at the
community level. Examples exist in Ghana, where Water and Sanitation Development
Boards (WSDBs) exist in small towns (for piped water systems) and WATSAN (water and
sanitation) committees in small communities and villages (for single source water systems)
to extend the powers of the local authority (District Assembly) closer to the communities to,
among other responsibilities, ensure a safe environment for all community members.
Traditional authorities may be empowered to impose sanctions on offending community
members who engage in waste disposal practices that are detrimental to the sustainability of
the environment.
4.3 Institutions and economic sustainability of waste management
The economic sustainability component cautions against deriving today’s wealth or
achieving some other environmental or social benefits in a manner that diminishes the
overall stock of capital or resources including natural resources (Rogers et al, 2008; Valverde,
2008). According to the World Bank, the pursuit of sustainable development should base
developmental and environmental policies on a number of factors including a comparison
of costs and benefits (World Bank, 1992 as cited in Rogers et al, 2008). In practical terms,
waste management should be done in a manner that can be justified when the overall
benefits – including the estimated economic value of environmental protection and resource
recovery – are compared with the economic cost of the service. In solid waste management,
for instance, the desire for economic sustainability justifies the practice of resource recovery,

participation as one of its key strategies towards cost recovery (Ministry of Local
Government and Rural Development [MLGRD], 1999). Private companies were contracted
to collect waste from communal storage points and also franchised to provide house-to-
house collection services to households within various zones demarcated throughout the
metropolis. While waste collection from communal storage points was paid for by the
central government, the cost of house-to-house collection was borne by the individual
households without any subsidy from the government. Thus, the growth of house-to-house
collection services led to cost recovery or, better still, cost savings on communal waste
collection, since wastes collected under house-to-house service would have otherwise been
deposited in communal bins. The study found that the amount recovered from house-to-
house collection services, as a percentage of the expenditure of the Metropolitan Assembly’s
Waste Management Department (WMD), increased from 26.5% in 2001 to 68.6% in 2004, as
shown in Figure 1.
Fig. 1. Amounts recovered from solid waste collection in Kumasi after Ghana’s
Environmental Sanitation Policy of 1999 introduced private sector participation (Source:
Obeng et al [2009])

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4.3.2 Formal organisations and economic sustainability
The influence of formal organisations on the economic sustainability of waste management
is demonstrated by the popular debate over whether to leave waste collection services in the
hands of public or private organisations. It is certain that waste management services cannot
be economically sustainable unless some key organisational factors exist. These include:
 willingness and ability to invest in the acquisition of adequate equipment to provide the
level of service which justifies service providers’ willingness to charge and elicits

Informal institutions play a significant role in the economic sustainability of waste
management in rural areas of developing countries in particular. They determine the values,
perceptions and attitudes of waste management service practitioners and beneficiaries
towards the economic aspects of waste management, as well as the unofficial arrangements
which may exist at the community level to respond to the requirements of economic
sustainability.
Where traditional values place a high priority on personal and communal hygiene and
institutes penalties for offenders, it is easier to convince service beneficiaries to make
financial contributions towards service delivery and, hence, improve the chances of cost
recovery. Besides, traditional laws may be used to control indiscriminate disposal and
consequently minimise the cost of cleansing activities and the external cost of environmental
pollution.
4.3.4 Informal organisations and economic sustainability
Informal organisations, usually at the community level, affect economic sustainability in a
number of ways especially in developing countries. They offer informal structures by which
informal institutions are applied to enhance economic sustainability. For instance, in rural
Ghana, WATSAN committees mobilise community members to provide direct
environmental management services such as drain cleansing and public latrine management
in order to minimise or avoid the cost of hiring hands for the service. Also during the
construction of waste management infrastructure, volunteer, youth and gender groups in
the community may contribute labour to minimise the cost of the project. In that case, the
poor can also contribute to the economic sustainability of services and projects without
making any financial contributions. On the other hand, those who can afford financial
contributions are allowed to do so in lieu of direct involvement while their contributions are
used to engage the jobless to provide the service.
Co-operative groups also help each other to acquire household facilities by making regular
contributions into a mutual fund. Community members who are not capable of making a
one-off payment for the acquisition of such facilities like domestic toilets take advantage of
such schemes to acquire them and pay for it over a conveniently long period of time.
4.4 Institutions and social sustainability of waste management

the National Community Water and Sanitation Programme (NCWSP) prepared by the
Community Water and Sanitation Agency (CWSA) seeks to address sustainability issues in
rural water supply and sanitation. The programme adopts the community ownership and
management (COM) approach to avoid problems of sustainability, especially social and
economic sustainability. Under the programme, the CWSA only plays the role of facilitators
while the community exercises the freedom to select technology options, under the guidance
of the CWSA’s technical team, and elects representatives to constitute a WATSAN
committee or WSDB to manage and operate the facilities. Thus, there is opportunity to blend
customs with best environmental and technical practices to the acceptance of members of
the community.
This collaboration between the CWSA – a formal organisation – and the WATSAN
committee or WSDB – informal organisations – is possible because the formal institutional
framework allows it. The District Assemblies have bye-laws from which the WATSAN
committees and the WSDBs derive their authority.
5. Conclusion
From a holistic perspective, institutions are not just about organisations but, first and
foremost, the arrangements and rules, which exist in society to control behaviour and
interactions among individuals and groups, both formal and informal. The institutional
matrix for waste management should be viewed as consisting of four interrelated
components, namely formal institutions, informal institutions, formal organisations and
informal organisations.
All aspects of the institutional matrix play crucial roles to ensure sustainability in the
delivery of waste management services and account for the differences observed in the
quality and sustainability of services between developing countries and their developed
counterparts. It is also noted that, the effects of informal institutions on the whole

Institutional Matrix for Sustainable Waste Management

37
institutional matrix is more pronounced in developing countries than in developed

European Union (2003), “Directive 2002/96/EC of the European Parliament and of the
Council of 27 January 2003 on waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE)”,
Office for Official Publications of the European Communities,
Brussels.
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available at:
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Gupta, J and Van der Zaag, (2008), “Interbasin Water Transfers and Integrated Water
Resources Management: Where Engineering Science and Politics Underlock”,
Physics and Chemistry of the Earth, 33, 28-40
Hall, P. A. and Thelen, K. (2005), “Institutional Change in Varieties of Capitalism”,
International Sociological Association Annual Conference, Chicago, Illinois.

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Hasna, A. M. (2007). "Dimensions of Sustainability". Journal of Engineering for Sustainable
Development: Energy, Environment, and Health 2 (1): 47–57.
Hearne, R. R. (2004), Evolving Water Management Institutions in Mexico, Water Resources
Research, 40, W12S04, doi: 10.1029/2003WR002745. American Geophysical Union: 1-
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Management”, Water Resources Update, Issue 127, 6-10.
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Conditions and Health Impact: A Case-Control Study. Rev. Soc. Bras. Med. Trop. Vol
36, No. 1, Uberaba.
Helmke, G. and Levitsky, S. (2004). “Informal Institutions and Comparative Politics: A
Research Agenda”. Perspective on Politics 2:725-740. American political Science
Association, Cambridge University Press.
Kajikawa, Y. (2008), “Research Core and Framework of Sustainability Science”, Sustainability


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Saleth, R. M. (2006), “Understanding Water Institutions: Structure, Environment and
Change Process”, in Perret, S., Farolfi, S and Hassan, R (eds), Water Governance for
Sustainable Development, Earthscan, London.
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2005”, Statutory Instruments 2005/894, available at:
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Vogler, J. (2003), “Taking Institutions Seriously: How Regime Analysis can be Relevant to
Multilevel Environmental Governance”, Global Environmental Politics 3:2
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 25-39.

Hungary
1. Introduction
Frank Popper was the first to have used the concept of LULU (Locally Unwanted Land
Uses) in 1981. LULU may refer to low-cost housing, power plants, airports, wastewater
treatment plants, prisons, open-cast mines, energy supply lines, motorways, dams, oil
refineries, railway lines, landfills, cemeteries, amusement parks or pubs or military facilities
(Popper, 1981). Almost every major regional development project (petrol station, car repair
shop, motel, parking house, rent-a-car company etc.) behaves like a LULU, and often even
facilities which at first sight seem to be desired by the community (office building,
residential park, luxury hotel, hospital, assembly shop, port etc.) come to the fate of LULUs.
It would be very difficult to describe by one word why these facilities sometimes provoke
such extraordinary resistance. Fear from physical injuries may be a motive, the same as
concern about the stigmatisation of the host settlement and the consequent drop in real
estate prices. Some negative impacts are certain to occur (e.g. increase in air pollution and
noise load near a newly completed motorway section), whereas others have a very low
occurrence probability (such as the leakage of a nuclear waste repository, for example). The
negative health or economic impacts may be accompanied by negative social impacts, such
as the erosion of the social networks or the often irreversible alteration of the local cultures
(Lesbirel, 2003). In the context of an international comparative survey of the motives of
protest against the siting of low-level nuclear waste repositories, Anna Vári and her fellow
researchers came to the conclusion that concerns about undesirable facilities typically fall
into five categories: the opponents of the repositories expressed health and safety, economic,
environmental and social as well as technical and decision-making-related concerns (Vári et
al., 1991).
In addition to LULU, another commonly used acronym in connection with the siting of
facilities of the above type is NIMBY, i.e. not in my backyard. For the purpose of completeness,
let me mention that in addition to the two well-known acronyms (LULU and NIMBY), new
ones have also appeared in the technical literature and the media, such as NOPE (Not on
Planet Earth) or BANANA (Build absolutely nothing anywhere near anybody). The NIMBY
phenomenon carries an important additional meaning relative to LULU: it is used mainly to

many disputes (Faragó et al., 1989). These cases highlighted an important aspect of the
situation in Hungary: they culminated at a historical moment which defined their further
fate. The dam was a symbol of political power threading through everything of the
totalitarian party regime (Fleischer, 1993). Protest against the dam was obviously a way to
demonstrate against the regime, and hence the conflict acquired a connotation that was
different from that of the typical Western European and North American conflicts. By the
end of the eighties, it had become impossible to prevent the population from expressing its
opinion on environmental decisions. One of the most important features of the siting
conflicts at the time of transition, namely their dynamically changing institutional, political
and social environment (something that existed hardly or not at all in Western European
research) may reinforce our belief that the social institution systems (or their absence) have a
major influence on the course of progress of social conflicts of this type.
The case of Bős-Nagymaros, however, highlighted many other factors as well. Firstly, it
turned out that the tug of war of the actors of the central political power often manifests
itself in specific cases and overrides expert considerations. Secondly, since the different
positions ought to have been reconciled with the contribution of Czechoslovakia and later
on Slovakia, the conflict, quite severe anyway, acquired an international dimension. The
case of the dam shed further shadows on the far-from-cloudless relationship of the two
countries, laden with conflicts historically. The national governments often used the case of
the Dam to achieve their own home policy targets, without making a real effort to come to a
solution. Decades later a similar dilemma recurred in the form of the conflict provoked by

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43
the siting of the Rosia Montana (Romania) gold mine, when the Hungarian state took action
as stakeholder of the case.
1

The siting of the Dorog hazardous waste incinerator was another problem given excessive

were not in accordance with actual EU regulations therefore new facilities were needed.
Although industrial waste production has significantly dropped since 1990, the municipal
waste generation has been still a crucial issue in the country (Pomázi, 2010). (Of course,
municipal solid waste represents a lot smaller proportion than industrial waste production.)
Municipal solid waste is mainly utilized in landfills (more than 80% of the waste is

1
Since few scientific reflections exist so far on this case which met with such considerable press
reaction, I shall refrain from its more detailed presentation and analysis here. However, it can be stated
that several of the basic siting approaches appear in this case: investors and politicians arguing that the
economically deprived region will prosper are opposed to the locals and the civil and other interest
groups (the government included) concerned by the risks involved. As in the case of the Bős-
Nagymaros Dam, party policy skirmishes, this time Romanian ones have made their impact on the
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transported to these facilities), some of them is incinerated (around 6%), and the rest is
recycled or composted (see Figure 1.).

0
500
1000
1500
2000
2500
3000
3500

3. Methodology and data
Research methodologies based on case studies are especially popular in the area of siting
decisions laden with environmental conflicts, not only in Hungary, but also in many other

Waste Management Facility Siting and Social Conflicts – the Case of Hungary

45
parts of the world where such research is carried out. This is no accident. Researchers meet
with many viewpoints in the context of most siting decisions. There are many perspectives,
and many actors with different motives, which makes it difficult to design and carry out a
well-operationalised quantitative research project. Research is further aggravated by the
difficulty of separating the phenomenon under study from its context (if that is possible at
all), and this is another circumstance which may encourage the researcher to apply
qualitative research methodologies (and in particular case study method) (Yin, 1994).

Case Type of waste Years
The North-east Pest County Waste Management
program
solid municipal
waste
2002-2004
North-Balaton Region landfill
solid municipal
waste
2001-2010
Battery waste recycling facilities hazardous waste 1985-2009
Alternative fuel in the cement factory hazardous waste 2002-2005
Low-level nuclear waste repository nuclear waste 1987-2009
High-level nuclear waste repository in Boda nuclear waste 1995-
Table 1. Case studies on social conflicts

events of the siting ‘saga’ were published in major newspapers and a comprehensive case
study was elaborated about the siting process (Kovács & Sándor, 2004). Since eight different
villages were invited for accepting the waste management facility and all of them rejected
the idea, the social conflicts were apparent even to the wider public. The rejections mostly
came in a form of a veto: seven municipalities organized local referenda between 2002 and
2004, and the number of ‘no’ votes prevailed all the time.
The project originally was brought together by nine municipalities, but soon after that many
other villages and towns joint to the consortium, finally 59 municipalities took part in the
program. They planned to set up a new regional landfill that would handle the municipal
solid waste of the region in Püspökszilágy. In this village waste management facilities were
not unknown to the inhabitants; a low-level nuclear waste repository was already in
operation there. In spite of this (or may be just because of this) the people of Püspökszilágy
rejected the siting of a landfill in 2002. This was the first rejection that was followed by seven
others; only one village – Valkó – would have supported the new site, but in this case the
Ministry for Environment and Water vetoed the construction. Numerous stakeholder
groups were involved in the siting process; inhabitants were supported by local and
national environmental activist groups. The referenda showed that most people refused to
have a waste management facility even with valuable economic compensations. Some critics
claimed that rival waste management companies also enhanced the social conflicts since
they opposed the new facility to be built from a business point of view (Kiss, 2005).
At the beginning of 2004 decision makers seeing the series of failures declared that there is
no need for a large regional landfill, but modernization and expansion of existing facilities
are sufficient for handling waste management problems of the county.
4.2 The landfill of the North-Balaton region
The North-Balaton waste management project similarly to the formerly introduced North-
east Pest County program had a long story in the first years of the new millennium.
Veszprém with its 64,000 inhabitants plays a central role in the North-Balaton region; it is a
cultural and economic centre. The increasing level of the municipal solid waste produced in
the city worried city officials and they set up alternative courses of action in order to solve
the problem. Their first idea was to expand the existing landfill of the city, however due to

5. Social conflicts around hazardous waste siting
As Table 1. highlighted the amount of hazardous waste has been decreasing recently; in
2008 it dropped bellow one million tons (Hungarian Central Statistical Office [HCSO], 2010).
In this section two emblematic case studies will be introduced: (1) the brief history of the
battery waste recycling facilities, and (2) the DDC Cement factory case where hazardous
waste was utilized as an alternative fuel in the factory.
5.1 The brief history of the battery waste recycling facilities
The case of battery waste recycling facilities was discussed in several works, although each
case study focused on a different stage of the events (Szirmai, 1999; Szántó 2010). This case,
which has been dragging on for years, is the model example of Hungarian siting decisions,
which exemplifies almost every one of the errors which can be committed by the decision-
makers, while also shedding light on the institutional, political and social factors influencing
the siting of undesired facilities. A waste battery recycler is a typical NIMBY facility: the
majority of the Hungarian society accepts its necessity in general terms (not to mention the
international disapproval of shipping hazardous waste across the borders), but will show
fierce local opposition to any specific siting attempt. Without a recycling facility the waste
batteries must be exported to the neighbouring countries such as Austria and Slovenia and
waste battery containing a valuable amount of lead are reused there.
In Gyöngyösoroszi, most objections concerned the prospective technology, beside the
already high environmental load of the area; in Komló, the plan was condemned to failure
by the counter-reactions of the adjacent settlements, which thought that they would share
the burdens with the residents of Komló, whereas the benefits (local taxes, jobs) would go
exclusively to the host settlement.
In Monok, a settlement at the gate of the Tokaj vine region, siting efforts failed because the
local viticulturists felt that they threatened the reputation of the Tokaj wines, and did
everything to kill the siting by their protest actions. Nevertheless, the inhabitants of Monok
led by their mayor supported the idea to have a hazardous facility nearby since the new
investment would have brought new jobs (around 200 employees would have been hired if
the plant had been constructed) and growing tax revenues for the village. The
unemployment rate in Monok exceeds the national figures significantly and the incomes of

of alternative waste incineration had already been raised in the factory previously due to the
many foreign experiences demonstrating the applicability and cost-effectiveness of this
technology. The announcement was followed by protests on such scale as was unexpected
to both the company management and the municipality. Some environmentalist groups
disputed the professionalism of the environmental protection examinations, and in
November 2002, the Hungarian Green Party started canvassing for signatures and in a short
time it collected around 800 signatures from protesters. DDC and Vác municipality
organised a forum together with the Vác Environmentalist Society, where it turned out that
the factory had been experimenting with the incineration of various acid-resin-containing
materials (spent oil, so-called Cemix and Mumix mixtures). (The factory was repeatedly
accused of illegal waste-burning, but as a matter of fact they had had a permit for
experimental acid resin burning valid until August 2001.) Several appeals were lodged
against the resolution of the National Environmental Protection Inspectorate. Some objected
to the incineration site being close to a school, and others found it injurious that the waste
transports would probably increase the already quite heavy traffic on main road 2.
The Duna-Dráva Cement case culminated in 2003 and 2004. In January 2003, the National
Inspectorate cancelled the waste incineration permit with reference to procedural errors, and
obliged DDC to have a new impact assessment made. The Inspectorate was of the opinion that
public hearings had to be held on cases like that, and the company had to make a full
environmental impact assessment. Although the representatives of the company and of Vác
municipality repeatedly emphasised that there were no professional arguments against the
incineration of waste and in particular hazardous waste, and that the process was in full
compliance with the environmental protection requirements, the opposition prevailed. After a

2
A local press organ published an article entitled “Chernobyl, too, was believed to be safe” in
connection with the siting of the hazardous waste processing plant in Monok (Szántó, 2010). The
envisaged investment was often compared to facilities which, although they did not have much in
common with waste processing plants, evoked experiences which could stigmatise it.


of Vác (Váci Környezetvédelmi Egyesület), and its 13 members included the managing
director of the Vác factory (who used to be on the AdHoc Committee), the representatives of
certain civil organisations of Vác, the representatives of the municipalities of Vác and other
settlements, and other opinion-leader personalities of the town. The Group was created
pursuant to the decision of the mayor and the management of DDC, to ensure
comprehensive social control over the cement factory and not in the least to build public
trust in the factory. The opposition diminished considerably over the 18 months under
study, but it could not be eliminated totally.
6. Nuclear waste and siting
Research in the 1980s revealed that the rejection rate was highest for facilities regarded as
definitely hazardous, such as nuclear power plants and incinerators of hazardous waste (i.e.
risk factors associated with relatively low probability of occurrence and catastrophic
consequences) (Kasperson, 1986; Mitchell–Carson, 1986). In Hungary siting of radioactive
waste repositories has not been such a hot issue as it was for example in the United States
where in the last decades no nuclear waste management facility has been created. In this
section – following the logics of the international literature – the low-level and high-level
nuclear waste repositories will be introduced separately since these cases showed different
patterns.

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6.1 Low level radioactive waste repository
The discussion complications of the siting of radioactive waste from the Paks nuclear power
plant fits into the international trends analysing nuclear waste siting, as witnessed by a
recent paper (Vári–Ferencz, 2006) which undertakes to summarise the events. Although the
authors examine the siting of low-level waste and high-level waste separately, their
conclusions apply to both areas.
The case of the Ófalu repository, which became a symbol of the inadequacy of the top-down
decision-making mechanism of the socialist regime in the history of low- and intermediate-

and made the candidate settlements compete – due to their vulnerability and economic
backlog – for hosting the facilities which in their opinion had detrimental effects (this, on the
other hand, is in good agreement with the model of Swallow et al.).
6.2 High level radioactive waste management
Contrary to the previous section, there was no social debate and no definite standpoint was
adopted concerning the social factors, in the case of Boda, a candidate for siting high-level
nuclear waste. Back in 1986 the Paks Nuclear Power Plant made a contract with Soviet
commercial agencies that the Hungarian high-level nuclear waste would be transported to
the Soviet Union. Yet, after the Soviet Union collapsed this solution became fairly unstable
therefore the power plant started to make research for the creation of a permanent high-