Economics of Municipal Solid Waste Management Options - A Synthetic Approach

Economics of Municipal Solid Waste Management Options

  Waste management policy should take into account the full-cost accounting whenever possible. However, as the current set of literature shows, comprehensive analysis is very rare and incomplete, since the costs and benefits of the municipal solid waste (MSW) management options are dependent on the specific conditions of a system. To overcome this problem, this article compares the cost-benefit structure of recycling, incineration, and landfilling, and attempts to show a cost-benefit framework of MSW management options. Although the field currently lacks comprehensive and objective cost-benefit model for comparing the MSW options, such a model can be constructed by synthesizing the literature. When all costs and benefits are considered, recycling becomes competitive in the low cost estimation. However, in the high cost estimates, recycling is the worst among the three options. The results suggest that the extensive data collection and validation are needed to reach valid conclusions.