Localized Waste Characterization Offered

Management consulting and engineering firm R. W. Beck Inc., Orlando, Fla., has developed a large-scale waste characterization study approach that it says can provide small communities with the recycling-related data they need at a greatly reduced cost.

The premise of the approach, which combines extensive data collection with statistical analysis, revolves around assessing and comparing waste streams within large geographical areas, then extrapolating that data using a Web-based computer model to come up with waste characterization information that is transferable to municipalities throughout the area.

“The goal is to give solid waste planners the data they need, at a cost they can afford so they can make better decisions,” says Tom Jones, project manager for R. W, Beck’s Infrastructure Services Group in Boston, “No jurisdiction can know what to divert from its waste stream until it knows what’s in its waste stream.”

For decades, solid waste planners have relied on waste characterization studies to assess what was being disposed, what could be recovered and how effective diversion and recovery programs were, notes Jones. The problem with the traditional approach, he adds, is that waste characterization studies are expensive, and many small jurisdictions cannot afford to conduct full studies.

A recent R.W. Beck Florida statewide study focuses primarily on data collected from 12 counties on 31 materials. The study, conducted over two seasons, will produce information that is transferable to all 67 of Florida’s counties, as well as to cities.

“The great thing about this approach,” says Jones, “is that data transferability drills down to district, township, borough, and even village level.”