The feasibility study is usually the strongest part of a waste programme. It measures the tonnages, sorts the waste stream, picks a site and a technology, and prices both. Then the programme slows down, or a facility is built and never runs the way the study said it would.
The reasons are rarely technical. They are the parts of the plan that sit outside the study’s scope.
The capital is funded. The running costs are not.
Donors and development banks will pay for trucks, transfer stations and a landfill cell. Fuel, wages, spare parts and cell cover come out of a municipal budget from year two. If the fees that pay for those are not set, collected and ring-fenced before construction, the trucks park within a year.
The design assumes an operator who does not exist yet
An engineered landfill or a sorting line needs a trained operator under a contract with clear targets. Too often the operator is chosen after the design is fixed, and inherits equipment it would not have chosen.
The recycling income is counted before it is tested
Plans often count on selling plastics, metals or compost. The nearest buyer may be in another country, prices move, and the quality buyers demand is higher than the plan assumes. Income that has not been tested with a real buyer should not carry the business case.
Land and permits start late
A site chosen on paper still has to pass land title, community consent and an environmental impact assessment. When that work starts only after funding is approved, it sets the timetable for everything else.
Time changes the numbers
Two or three years can pass between the study and the first contract. By then tonnages have grown, prices have moved, and the officials who championed the programme may have moved on.
Ports face the same test
Under MARPOL, the international convention on pollution from ships, port states must provide adequate facilities to receive ships’ waste. A reception facility works only if delivering waste is cheaper and easier for ships than keeping it on board, and if the facility can take it when they arrive. That is an operating question, not a construction one.
What works
- Design backwards from the operating budget that exists, not the capital that is on offer.
- Name the operator early, and give them a say in the design.
- Test every income line with a real buyer before counting it.
- Run land, consent and the impact assessment alongside the study, not after it.
- Plan a first phase small enough to run on today’s budget.
A programme that runs on the budget that exists beats a better one that cannot.