Anticipating Conflicts: Public Participation in Managing the Solid Waste Crisis

A major problem o( environmental poliey making is to anticipate potential eonf/iets among Ihe major partieipanls and to reaeh a suitable understanding or compromise that meets both competence vis-a-vis the decision problem and fairness vis-a-vis the affeeted population. This paper introduees a novel model of publie involvement in decisions about solid was te disposal in speeitie and environmental management in general. Struetured in three consecutive steps, the model is based on the philosophy that stakeholders, experts, and eitizens should each contribute to the environmental planning effort their particular concern and experience. In a first step, the research team elicits the values and criteria for assessing and evaluating poliey options from all relevant stakeholders; in a seeond step, experts are asked to provide performance assessments tor eaeh option on eaeh criterion; and in a third step, randomly selected eitizens are given the opportunity to evaluate each option on the basis ot the concerns and impacts revealed in the previous two steps. * Postal address : Prof. Dr. O. Renn Clark University Center for Tcchnology. Environment, and Dcvelopment (CENTED)