Assessment of the effect of strengthening selective collection in the municipal solid waste management costs

Abstract

Collection and transportation are the most expensive activities for the public administration in the municipal waste management system. Therefore, this study evaluated the implementation of environmental education policies, expansion of the coverage of selective collection and reduction of the per capita generation rate and its influence on the collection and landfilling of municipal solid waste generated costs. To this purpose, a dynamic systems model was built, and 27 scenarios were simulated with different behaviors of policy implementation and a forecast horizon between 2019 and 2040. The results indicate that investments in environmental education only bring benefits when associated with investments in the expansion of municipal selective collection. The expansion of selective collection coverage significantly increases the total cost of the system since its cost is three times higher than the conventional collection's. However, this cost can be reduced in case of per capita generation decrease pegged of implementation environmental education and selective collection programs. It is noteworthy that the model can be used to determine the costs of managing MSW when it considers the impact of selective collection, environmental education, and variations in MSW creation.