The model, developed by COWI for the Danish Environmental Protection Agency, simulates the flow of waste between Denmark’s municipalities and selected Danish incineration and storage facilities over the next 20 years. The recently completed project indicates that the sector as a whole could save almost DKK 100 million by concentrating waste in fewer, larger storage facilities and transporting waste over longer distances. A similar amount could be saved on incineration, although liberalisation will likely result in other costs. This suggests that savings on incineration could probably be achieved through better planning.
"Denmark has a well-run waste sector," says Mikkel T. Kromann, the man behind COWI's model calculations, "but there are still savings to be made. Operating costs at waste facilities are so high that as a rule it will pay to transport the waste in lorries to larger waste facilities, regardless of whether or not the market is liberalised. This will also result in the customer paying less for waste disposal."
The aim of the project is to determine the organisational, economic and environmental consequences that would follow in the wake of a free market. The centrepiece of the tool is a model known as Swahili (simulating waste handling in liberalisation), which takes into consideration transport and operating costs and in the longer term the construction of new facilities.