Report: cost and financing of municipal solid waste collection services in Istanbul

The collection is a high priority in the management of solid wastes in a modern city, and in order to plan and operate a collection service well, the cost and financial sources must be known and understood in detail. In this study the cost of collection services and environmental tax are evaluated for the year 2001 in Istanbul. The percentage of the employees working in municipal solid waste collection services is 83% by the private sector and 17% by the public sector. With privatisation, the labour costs can be reduced by approximately 75%. The unit collection cost ranges from 12.2 US dollar/ton to 50.7 US dollar/ton, and the average collection cost for Istanbul is 24.4 US dollar/ton. The cost of the collection service is about 70% of the total solid waste management costs, the cost of transfer is 17% and the regular disposal cost amounts to 13%. The proportion of collected tax to expenditures of waste collection varies from 3% to 67%. The management of solid wastes accounts for between 12 and 25% of the total expenditure of municipal authorities.