Ethical Levels and Waste Management: Assessing the Door-to-Door Selective Collection System

Abstract

This paper aims to study from the perspective of bioethics the controversy about door-to-door waste collection (DtD). Three goals are pursued: (1) to provide terms of comparison between different systems of urban waste management, (2) to distinguish the specifically ethical issues introduced by DtD, and (3) analyze its innovative character as a social technology. After briefly considering the state of the art, in which a bibliographical revision shows that the ethics literature has relatively neglected this topic, Siurana"™s "moral compass" is applied to the question concerning waste. Next this proposal is used to describe and assess the two main models being discussed. After introducing the most innovative features of DtD, some recommendations are issued and plausible objections answered.