Abstract
Waste accounting system has aroused a lot of attention in recent decades. Except for the goal of waste reduction, a cost-efficient waste management system will be an important target for developing a material-recycling society. It is argued that integrated environmental cost benefit analysis, including waste terms, should be established at financial, environmental and social aspects. As a preliminary research on waste accounting system, this study firstly aims at developing a function of administrative operation maintenance cost for municipal solid waste (MSW) in Taiwan, considering the costs associated with the administrative collection, transportation, recycling, treatment and disposal processes for MSW. Influencing factors would be analyzed in the cost function. Secondly, a short-term projection for MSW operation maintenance cost up to 2011 would be conducted by coupling with the Estimation Model System of MSW discards established in the authors' previous study. Possible ranges of the required administrative cost on MSW operation and maintenance would be forecasted based on the assumed scenarios. The MSW cost forecasting would be helpful for decision makers in constructing the integrated waste accounting system and in facilitating MSW management policies.
