At this point in the design cycle, an MSW
processing facility has been customized to the particular waste stream of a community and
its surrounding economy (into which will be sold the processed recovered materials). As a
final step a site plan is now developed and the project is packaged so that it may be
presented to the local community and its approving authorities. This is the point at which
the design cycle for the traditional model begins, namely, the site planning and hearings.Selling a waste management facility to a community can never be taken lightly.
But the process is considerably facilitated when its benefits are as demonstrably economic
and environmentally friendly as those which the new model yields. In hearings, the typical
community concerns are voiced—will there be odors, animal and bird scavenging,
methane emission, toxic contamination, and perhaps the greatest concern, property
devaluation? All of these concerns can be addressed factually because, in the design of
the new model, they are prevented.
However, the central focus of every community and its government is
economic and environmental. With the new model, the manufacturing profits, jobs, and the
waste stream reduction to the landfill can be quantifiably documented so that both the
community and its MSW authority are beneficiaries rather than adversaries.
