Abstract
The central government in Korea has pursued a policy to privatize municipal solid waste treatment facilities in order to enhance the effectiveness of public financial management in recent years. To understand the intentions of local governments on this policy, the survey with questionnaires on 37 out of 256 local governments was made in October, 2007. The results were analyzed and compared in 6 classified policy areas. The results showed that local government had enough financial status to operate the facilities with proper services and had the opinion with positive management in finance with increasing rate of prospective views. Among the facilities operated by local governments, the satisfaction levels for landfill(46.2%) and incineration(40.0%) were relatively higher. However those for recycling and food waste resource facilities were not satisfied with showing lower rate of satisfaction. The priority of privatization in consideration among them were following in order of food waste resource plants(76.2%), incinerators(63.6%), and recycling facilities(53.9%) and the most considerable reason to privatize them was due to resolve financial problems(59.7%). They thought and expected that the privatization would provide cost reduction effects in local governments and also be easier to achieve the environmental goals. To enhance such privatization, expanding more incentives by central government would be essential as shown in the investigation of this survey.
