New approaches and innovative ideas are emerging that hold the potential to improve garbage collection efficiency and effectiveness.
Nobody wants to live amongst garbage and waste. It is an environmental and health hazard. It is a blight on a city’s natural beauty. And it is often perceived as being indicative of poor city administration and planning. Thankfully, new approaches and innovative ideas are emerging that hold the potential to improve garbage collection efficiency and effectiveness.
Garbage collection services refers to the collection and removal of waste that cannot be recycled or reused. For this exercise, waste disposal services (such as landfill site operations) were not included in calculations. Waste diversion programs (such as recycling) were also separated and the benchmarking results are presented here.
Efficiency
Cost and revenue of collecting a ton of garbage. These measures reflect the total costs (operating and capital) for garbage collection and the total revenue collected (through fees and other charges), divided by the number of reported tons of garbage collected during the period. For this indicator, we separated costs from revenue and compared them side by side (see below).
Points to consider:
Effectiveness
Percent of properties served by garbage collection services. This measure reflects the percentage of serviceable properties that receive regular garbage collection. This may represent all properties (residential, commercial and industrial) in a city or — where services are limited to residential properties — just residential.
Points to consider: