Pay as You Throw (PAYT) is a usage-pricing model for the disposal of Municipal Solid Waste. The implementation of the PAYT approach requires three main elements: a) measurement of the generated amount of waste; b) a means to identify the waste generator; c) the unit pricing for individual charging based on the amount of waste collected and services provided. The PAYT system splits the overall municipal solid waste tax into one fixed part, no-service dependent and a variable part related to the amount of waste generated and collected. The PAYT approach is becoming widely applied in waste management because: a) it supports a more sustainable management of
waste flows from economic, environmental and social points of view; b) it is a powerful instrument to help local authorities in supporting and optimizing waste management policies and to improve urban waste separation and recycling reaching a high percentage regarding selective collection of excellent quality materials; c) it makes citizens more conscious regarding waste production problems, orientating them to produce less waste and opt for reusable and easy to separate packaging because the PAYT approach charges citizens according to the quantity of waste produced. The aims of this paper are two: to give evidence that the Italian municipal solid waste tariff system already in use is a normalized method of pricing which is unfair to citizens and to introduce a new model that is an innovative implementation of the standard PAYT scheme. All data refers to real cases managed
by Softline.