Municipal Solid Waste Knowledge Platform

The webinar on cost recovery and financing for municipal solid waste management projects was held on June 8th, 2018. The webinar was organized by Center for Clean Air Policy (CCAP) on behalf of the CCAC MSW Initiative. 

The webinar was broken into two parts: cost recovery techniques and organic waste projects financing.

Andrea Laguna, of MAG Consultorias,  presented on Cost Recovery Techniques for municipal solid waste programs. Despite its apparent simplicity, cost recovery is one of the primary problems municipalities face as the fees that are charged to customers for the waste service are small and often fall short of covering costs, which impacts service quality and the types of services (or technologies) that can be provided. It also impacts financing as a municipality that does not recover costs will have trouble attracting complementary international finance to fund its projects.

Julio Rivera, International Policy Associate at CCAP, then presented on financing specifically for organic waste projects.  The presentation examined the importance and challenges of estimating the costs of an organic waste management project. The presentation also highlighted the importance of considering all the key financial parameters, such as cash flows from the sale of outputs (e.g. electricity, heat, compost), in order to assess project feasibility and measure return on investment and gave an overview of potential barriers and solutions for implementing these projects.