Spatial analysis of industrial waste generation in Chile: an environmental justice approach

Environmental impacts from industrial waste mismanagement are heterogeneous and unevenly distributed across subpopulations. Yet, environmental assessments often regard location of waste-generating firms and waste generation levels as interlinked processes. This paper examines whether district-level socioeconomic vulnerability is associated with firm presence and non-hazardous industrial waste generation in Chile, and whether these relationships are spatially dependent. We hypothesise that vulnerability is associated with firm presence and higher waste intensity, that waste generation is spatially dependent, and that burdens increase when territorial disadvantages overlap. Using firm-level waste records and socioeconomic data for 2,762 Chilean census districts, we estimate a spatially adapted Heckman selection model with Spatial Autoregressive specifications to assess how vulnerability relates to location and waste generation decisions and the spatial nature of these relationships. Results show that firm location is not concentrated in the most deprived districts but is associated with education and industrial agglomeration. Conditional on firm presence, waste intensity is higher in poorer, rural, and sectoral specialised districts, especially where mining and silviculture operate. The findings highlight the need to integrate industrial waste information into land-use planning, zoning, and environmental monitoring, helping to move waste policy beyond aggregate volumes toward the territorial distribution of industrial waste burdens.