Recently, as the volume of waste to be disposed has tremendously increased and it's content more complicated, many problems of disposal related to the method of landfill and it's contamination have been brought up. It is consequently necessary to broaden methods of disposal in order to lessen the costs of and the environmental impact from the existing ways of disposal.
This thesis aims at providing a cost structure for MSW(municipal solid waste) management system, and assessing the cost-effectiveness of the disposal methods based on an case of Seoul city. That is to identify a cost structure that is based on waste-generation activities, in contrast to the cost-structures suggested in the previous research with a criterion of accounting practice, and then to cost alternatives with the perspective of life-cycle of MSW that covers from waste generation to final disposal. This activity-based costing method and the following life-cycle perspective, are helpful for easy recognition of environmental costs and factors to which is attributed high cost as well as to seek a political solution by showing the difference of costs among various kinds of waste.
Brief results of this study are: First, to suggest a cost structure following each stage of MSW management system and measure the unit costs of each kind of waste using the structure. Second, in order to find the total cost of each kind of waste, the volume and the total cost of each are examined and by the flows of MSW with the concepts of source-generation volume, separation ratio, regeneration ratio of recyclable, and combustion ratio. Third, to show the difference of cost-effectiveness, by each kind of waste, of alternative methods of disposal including landfill, reuse/recycle, and combustion. Finally, to present the potential that combustion is better than landfill by doing sensitivity analyses with assumptions of increasing landfill cost and decreasing impact of combustion on the environment.
Therefore, the contribution points of this research may be that this approach adopts activity-based costing method and the following the life-cycle perspective, and also that this can be a contribution for an MSW management system, which should meet a need to dispose waste having a unique type of contents, to find its own solution and minimize substantial cost.
