Dive Brief:

• SCS Engineers has worked collaboratively with Killeen, TX to achieve a 20-year solid waste master plan, using a planning tool and rate study to assess expenses and provide a framework for capital expenditures.
• The study lead to the decision for the city to purchase new collection equipment and to take a deeper look into the feasibility of implementing single-stream recycling.
• The end result of the collaboration is a master plan that could be leveraged to determine solid waste management ideas to benefit neighboring communities; that could help manage environmental safety; and could enable officials to determine expenditures prior to launching into planning, designing, and constructing a facility.

Dive Insight:

"Many of our clients face a similar challenge, so we dug deeply into all pertinent facets that drive the logistics of waste management for Killeen," said Kevin Yard, a vice president and director at SCS, as reported in Waste Management World. "Then we delivered a system...to use for many years encompassing virtually any set of conditions that present a financial, environmental, or quality challenge to managing wastes."

The tool, if it’s all it’s cracked up to be, could be a gold mine for city planners and prove beneficial to the industry, too. A model flexible enough to be applied at multiple locations could take some guess work out of planning for the future. It would mean not having to rely on a cookie cutter "best practice," thus saving time and money.

If the tool evolved to the point where it could address some of the more complex issues special to waste management, such as reaching zero waste or adding life to a landfill, it just might impact major policy decisions and be as influential as life cycle tools.