John Trotti

I was speaking with a reader about what we had in mind for this issue of MSW Management - essentially a look at waste systems in the year 2010 - and he asked, "Why so far in the future? I'm more concerned about what to do next week, much less next month or year."

Of course, the immediate concerns are always going to be on the front burner, and yes, it's hard for us to elevate our focus to some "if...come...maybe" point in the future when there may be dragons poised to broil us right around the next bend. Indeed, no matter how well prepared we are - or think we are - it is our job to respond to situations over which we exercise little if any control. Yet that is exactly why it is important for us to stop every once in a while and consider what the future is likely to bring...and what we can do to exercise some amount of control over the outcome.

Reacting to the World of 2010

Will 2010 be significantly different from today? Barring catastrophe, probably not. In fact, many factors things that will dictate your activities are already pretty well locked on a course that is not likely to change. In short, 2010's die is already cast, and what we've tried to do in these pages is heighten your awareness of many of these issues.

You have - or at least should have - a pretty good idea of what your waste stream is going to look like both in terms of size and constitution, even if you are in the midst of dramatic change. Yes, the state of the economy and changing demographics will have an impact on the amount and characteristics of disposal, but the differences should lie well within expected limits. The same - though to a somewhat lesser extent - holds true with diversion opportunities, where the processes for significant change would almost certainly have to be well advanced by now. That said, I would like to mention a possible exception - one upon which we will elaborate in future issues - having to do with waste-to-energy activities where many existing contracts will expire or come up for renegotiation in the next several years. If you're facing such a situation, all bets are off until you've got a new deal in place.

While many details have yet to be finalized, still you should be tuned into the regulatory situation in 2010 and what this will mean in terms of equipment and operating procedures required to keep you in compliance. Even in the absence of firm guidance, what seems certain is that regulatory agencies at all levels will push standards to as far to the outer edge of the envelope as they feel they can, especially in such highly regulated activities as MSW management.

Many of us have experienced significant change in our workforce throughout the last decade, not only in terms of not only its cultural makeup, but also its expectations in terms of working environment and compensation. What these mean in both short- and long-range terms is really a function of how resolutely and effectively we've met the challenges and taken advantage of the opportunities these changes have presented to us.

How's Your 2020 Vision?

You might reasonably ask just how far into the future can we look before we’ve gone from the ridiculous to the sublime. For an answer I’d like to pose another question: How long does it take for something to go from concept to reality in your community? It really depends on what you've got in mind, how great a departure it represents from the way things are done at present, and what the cost is relative to the benefit. If you're talking about replacing existing carts with similar equipment, and the issue for all intents and purposes is cost, then the factors affecting lead- time come down to (1) doing the analysis, (2) selling the decision-makers, and (3) implementing the change. Though by no means a trivial effort, still this kind of project can be accomplished in a reasonably short period of time.

But what if, in conjunction with replacing existing carts, your object is to initiate an automated collection system? What kind of lead- time are you looking at then? Starting from scratch, could you complete the transformation by 2010? Maybe you could propose its completion by then, but I wouldn't bet the farm or your daytime job on it. Why? The more variables you throw into the game and the more aspects of community life you touch, the longer things take. You may might think, for instance, that since a lot of communities have already adopted automated collection, you should be able to cookie-cutter their experience into yours. Think again. For every situation in which such plagiarism works there are a dozen in which local differences make it quite a challenge. Then there are the myriad details to be tied down, many of which involve compromise and trade-offs. But even when you think you've put all of the mechanical and operational issues into an irresistible package, you've got to sell the program - not once, but invariably again and again. And each of these will involve revisions that range from "cosmetics" to major surgery. With each iteration, undoubtedly you will be reacting to new information and perhaps even different goals until what you end up with may bear little resemblance to what you started with.

While 2020 may appear to be a long way out there - admittedly too far for most of the activities that fill your day - once you accept that where substantive change is involved, you've embarked not on a project but rather on a process, it's closer to the effective horizon than you might think.

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MSW - May/June 2004