| Summary: | My thesis critically examines the legal approach to waste management that Canada and
Germany have taken over the past twenty years. Waste management offers an excellent
paradigm for understanding pollution issues in general, as waste disposal, in one form or
another, lies at the root of all pollution. As a highly visible environmental problem, waste has
earned a great deal of attention from environmental policy and law makers. Waste
management law represents a "microcosm" of environmental law, and thus offers a
particularly suitable context for analysing the development of modern environmental policy.
Environmental degradation is caused by the aggregated decisions of all members of
society. This implies that everyone must be involved in the effort to reestablish the vital link
between the eco-system and the economy. Some argue that environmental problems result
from market failure and that polluters must be given an incentive to consider environmental
issues as a cost factor in their decision-making. Since its development in the 1970s in the
economic context, the polluter pays principle has become a basic element of environmental
policy, serving as an instrument to determine who should bear responsibility for
environmental protection. In my thesis, I examine how this concept has been integrated into
national policies. In particular, I analyse the implementation of the principle in the context of
contaminated sites remediation and of recycling, where new concepts of environmental
responsibility have emerged. The polluter pays principle is a promising concept for finding a solution to certain
environmental problems. If the necessary ecological reforms are to take place, however, law
and policy require a moral dimension to change people's attitude towards their environment.
Environmental policy cannot be left to the uncertainties of profit signals in the market place,
as a strategic approach in both space and time mandates an active role for government. The
aim of this thesis is to point out some of the ways in which Canadian and German
environmental policy, as implemented in waste law, has tried to cope with the complex issue
of environmental protection and, in particular, whether and how a new concept of individual
responsibility for the environment has gained recognition.
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