Recycling and Landfilling in a Dynamic Sraffian Model: Application of the Corn–guano Model to a Waste Treatment problem

Landfill sites may be regarded as input for a waste treatment process. Considering landfill as an exhaustible resource, we apply a basic corn–guano model to a waste treatment problem. We show how dynamic substitution between landfilling and recycling occurs. Namely, in an early stage, landfill disposal is adopted as waste treatment and a recycling process is not activated. Once an economy faces exhaustion of landfill, a recycling process is activated as a backstop technology. We refer to the possibility that an economy may be unstable after exhaustion of landfill, even if it enjoys stable growth at the early stage.