The “effectiveness” of waste treatment systems

Abstract

When municipalities or regions have to select a new or additional waste treatment system, a selection procedure is started, to choose among available processes. In order to be able to compare waste treatment systems, it seems useful to characterize these systems in terms of volume reduction, energy production or savings, and treatment costs, as the parameters of primary interest. It is, of course, possible that other parameters might be added or that some parameters only partially considered. The scope of this communication is to indicate the possibility of the introduction of an overall “effectiveness-value” composed of these parameters. In this way, processes, and consequently their combination into systems, can be compared on a more or less neutral basis. The above-mentioned main parameters can be clarified, as follows.