The challenge
Manlleu Town Council saw the rollout of door-to-door collection as an opportunity to move, from day one, towards a pay-as-you-throw model.
The challenge was building a fee able to:
- Link taxation to the new collection model with user identification.
- Recognise correct participation in the system.
- Incentivise prevention and reducing the residual waste fraction.
- Avoid unwanted behaviours, such as waste being dumped elsewhere.
- Differentiate the fiscal treatment of housing and economic activities.
- Guarantee a differentiated, non-deficit fiscal structure.
This wasn’t just about adding a variable part to the fee — it was about defining which service variables could become robust, manageable fiscal criteria.
Project development
The fiscal model was designed alongside the rollout of the new door-to-door service, planned for late 2022, with the aim of applying pay-as-you-throw from 2023.
The work distinguished two structures:
- Household use: a model based on contribution bands.
- Economic activities: a model linked to the installed litres of residual-waste capacity and participation in source-separated collections.
This distinction made it possible to adapt taxation to the nature of each generator, and avoid applying a single criterion to very different realities.
The project culminated in transferring the model into the fiscal ordinance, turning the technical criteria of participation and generation into an applicable tax structure.
The project culminated in the transfer of the model to the tax ordinance, turning the technical criteria for participation and waste generation into an applicable tax structure.
Methodology
The methodology was structured in four steps:
1. Defining the fiscal variables
Identifying which door-to-door data could be used objectively in calculating the fee.
2. Modelling the household fee
Defining contribution bands to link the charge to the level of participation, without applying a strictly linear per-reading charge.
3. Modelling the commercial fee
Linking the charge to installed residual-waste capacity, incorporating reductions tied to participation in organic waste and multiple fractions.
4. Fiscal and regulatory transfer
Defining the criteria needed to incorporate the model into the fiscal ordinance.
A methodology aimed at combining fairness, incentive capacity, calculation robustness and administrative viability.
Results
- Defining a pay-as-you-throw model integrated with door-to-door collection.
- Bringing in participation as a fiscal criterion for household use.
- Creating a system of contribution bands, more robust than a strictly linear per-reading tariff.
- Adapting the fee to differences in generation between households.
- Defining a specific fiscal structure for economic activities.
- Linking the commercial fee to installed residual-waste capacity.
- Bringing in reductions tied to correct participation in source-separated fractions.
- Introducing economic incentives aimed at prevention and reducing residual waste.
- Integrating user identification, service data and taxation.
- Drafting the fiscal ordinance needed to make the model operational.
- Greater transparency about the cost of waste management and the economic impact of the residual fraction.
Conclusions
In Manlleu, taxation wasn’t treated as something to sort out after rolling out door-to-door collection — it was part of the same model.
The identification system provides the data, but the fiscal value appears once that data is turned into criteria that are objective, understandable, incentivising and administratively applicable.
Differentiating between housing and economic activities also makes it possible to use different variables depending on the nature of the generation.
Door-to-door collection identifies behaviour. The fee turns it into an economic incentive.
Lessons learned
- Taxation and the collection model need to be designed together.
The data the service generates shapes what’s possible for pay-as-you-throw down the line. - Participation and generation aren’t exactly the same thing.
You need to choose the fiscal variable that best fits the user type and the information available. - Bands add robustness to the household model.
They make it possible to recognise different levels of participation without linearly penalising every single contribution. - The commercial fee needs its own criteria.
Installed residual-waste capacity better approximates each activity’s generation. - The residual fraction is a strategic fiscal variable.
Reducing its capacity and generation directly connects taxation and prevention. - The fee can reinforce the service’s own goals.
When collection rules and fiscal incentives pull in the same direction, the system gains coherence.