Regarding collection costs applied a social
life-cycle cost analysis, determining that the pneumatic collection
system in their study was six times more expensive than a traditional
door-to-door waste collection system for a specific area
(0.2 km2 with 20,000 citizens/km2 and 2000 tonnes of MSW per
year). In addition, developed a comprehensive
cost model (including financial and carbon costs) to demonstrate
that: (1) the source separation of plastic packaging waste (PPW)
was over two times more expensive than post-separation and (2)
for source separation options, curbside collection was 2.5 times
more expensive than drop-off. assessed the
welfare economics of different waste systems applied to easily
degradable waste (EDW), plastic and paper. They found that incineration
was better than composting and anaerobic digestion for
EDW, and it was comparable to recycling for plastic and paper.
While these studies naturally reach a variety of conclusions based
on differences in framework conditions, very few of them include
(1) details of cost calculation principles for the involved waste
technologies, as in (2) details on assessment
focus, definitions of system boundaries and assumptions, or (3) clear, transparent
terminology for describing assessment principles
This clearly not only limits the transparency of these studies and
the subsequent applicability of the results, but it also illustrates
that the economic assessment of waste management systems is a
relatively under-developed field.