The economics of resource recovery from solid waste

Abstract

The decision to implement a resource recovery system as a method of solid waste disposal must be based on a sound economic evaluation of alternatives. Such evaluation is currently hindered by a lack of comparability between independent cost estimates. This is due both to the use of diverse estimation procedures and to the different assumptions made about the resource recovery systems. From a critical assessment of current practices and potential pitfalls in cost and revenue estimation, conventions are proposed to serve as a guide for future work.