MUNICIPAL WASTE MANAGEMENT

Strategy Medium difficulty

Public sector Interviewer-led case

This case presents the situation of a city that has experienced significant growth and whose waste
management infrastructure is struggling to keep up with population. It’s an ideal case to practice
structuring and exhibit interpretation. The numerical execution is straightforward while testing the
candidate’s ability to generate insights from numbers.

A video of this case is available in the Interview Prep Course.

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Problem definition

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Your client, Metro City, is a metropolis of 15 million people. A combination of an interesting urban life and
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growing economy have contributed to explosive population growth over the last decade. As a result, the
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amount of garbage heading to the landfills has increased.

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The Authority responsible for waste management estimates that at the current rate, the city is going to
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run out of landfill space in 8 years, well ahead of the design dates. They have reached out to you to help
address this situation.
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Metro City has hired you to recommend a strategy to deal with waste management.

Municipal Waste Management - 1/8

Question 1 (Structuring)

What factors would you want to consider when thinking about how to help Metro City with managing its
waste?

Additional information

Objectives
• To extend the life of the current landfills by an extra 4 years
• To move forward as a more sustainable municipality

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Operations

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• The city currently operates 6 large landfills located on the outskirts of the city

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• Remaining capacity of the landfills is 34 million Tonnes

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• There is one recycling plant in the city that can handle 2 million Tonnes of material per year
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• The recycling plant is operated by a private company

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• The city currently does not have any recycling programs in place
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Possible answer
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1. Increase landfill capacity

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a. Increase number of landfills

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• Expand size of existing landfills (e.g., area, height, speed of decomposition)

2. Decrease the amount of waste going to landfills

a. Decrease amount of waste produced
b. Increase recycling
• Recycling capacity (e.g., number of facilities, capacity of facilities)
• Recycling participation (e.g., convenience, wareness)
c. Other waste management options (e.g., co waste incinerators, biomass power stations)

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Question 2 (Numeracy)

How would you estimate the annual amount of waste going to the city landfills?

Additional information

This is market estimation question and the interviewee can take an approach which could be completely
different from the proposed possible solution. However, as long as their approach is sensible, it should
also be acceptable.

Have the interviewee make reasonable assumptions for any figures which they need for the estimate

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Sample assumptions:

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• population = 15M

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• people/household = 3
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• % not recycled = 85%

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• days in year = 360

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Possible answer
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Annual garbage
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= (population / people per household) *(garbage per day (Kg)) * (% not recycled) * (% going to landfills) *
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(days in a year)

Let’s assume than average household (3 people) bins two 5kg bags of waste per week. This does not
include commercial waste (e.g., business, construction). Including this, let’s assume every household
generates one 5kg bag a day.

Annual garbage
= (15M / 3) * 5 * 0.85 * 360 = ~7.5M Tonnes

Sanity check: (7.5M Tonnes / 15M people) = ~500 Kg per person per year

From here we should look at how garbage is generated and how that number can be reduced.

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Question 3 (Judgement and insights)

We have estimated the amount of waste produced annually, now we want to look at how waste is
generated and processed.

From exhibit 1 and 2, what can you conclude?

Possible answer

• Exhibit 1 shows that the recycling rate has decreased over the last decade, and now establishes itself at
17.5%
• Exhibit 2 shows that there has been a big shift to more recyclable waste being produced. 87% of all

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waste is now recyclable or compostable.

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• This means that, today, only a small proportion of the recyclable waste is recycled, and therefore that
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reducing the waste going to landfill by 50% is achievable in theory.
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• We would need to understand whether the current poor performance is caused by low participation in
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recycling programs or by lack of recycling capacity.

• The priorities should be the composting of organic waste, which represents 30% of all waste, and
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increasing how much of the other recyclables are actually recycled.

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Exhibit 1

Annual Waste by Destination (Million Tonnes)

12

10
1.73 1.75
8 1.7 1.72
1.63 1.65
1.56 1.59
6 1.52
1.5

4 7.97 8.25
7.2 7.48
6.47 6.65
5.2 5.58 5.84 5.91
2

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Y-9 Y-8 Y-7 Y-6 Y-5 Y-4 Y-3 Y-2 Y-1 Y0

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Landfill Recycling

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Exhibit 2
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Waste Composition
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Other non recycable

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Construction and demolition

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Organic
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Paper

Plastic

Glass

Metals

Nappies and Sanitary

0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35%

Y-10 Now (Y0)

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Question 4 (Numeracy)

The team looked further into the recycling for each type of waste and found that most of the waste being
recycled right now is metals, glass, paper and plastics but only 10% of the organic waste is composted.

They are wondering how much waste could be diverted if they could increase the composting rate
from 10% to 60%?

Possible answer

Amount diverted by the program

= (Total waste) * (% organic) * (target rate – current rate)

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= 10 million Tonnes/year * 30% * (60% - 10%)

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= 1.5 million Tonnes/year (or ~20% of total waste that goes to landfill)
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Maximum amount going to landfill per year

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= (Landfill Capacity) / (Number of Years)

= 34 / 8
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= 4.25 million Tonnes/year

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We would need to reduce the waste going to landfill by (8.25 – 4.25) = 4 million Tonnes to extend the life
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of our landfills by another 4 years. While 1.5 million Tonnes is a significant amount, it will not be enough
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to reach out target. It will also take a while to implement the change because the program and the
facilities must be designed and built
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We should now investigate steps to increase organic composting as well as additional ways of reducing
the amount of going to landfill to meet our target.

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Question 5 (Creativity)

The city wants to go ahead with the idea of increasing the composting of organic waste.

As they go ahead with the design of the program, they want you to help them think through the main factors
which would make the program successful in terms of participation.

Possible answer

Success of the program is determined by two factors:

• Awareness

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‒ High-priority targets (e.g., restaurants, schools, companies)

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‒ Media channels
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‒ Message
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• Participation
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‒ Convenience (e.g., type of bin, collection frequency)

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‒ Incentives and penalties (e.g., taxes, fines)

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‒ Operational implementation (e.g., composting plants)

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Question 6 (Synthesis)

The partner is walking by your workstation on the way to meet with the client and wants to get a quick
update on the current recommendations. What could you tell him in one minute?

Possible answer

The client has asked us to recommend a strategy to deal with waste management, and in specific,
extend the life of current landfills by 4 years.

We have not yet identified a strategy that will get us all the way there.

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However, we recommend that Metro City starts by developing an organic waste composting program to

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target organic waste, which accounts for 30% of total garbage. This program has the potential of
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decreasing the amount of waste heading to the landfills by ~20%.
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Potential next steps going forward may include:

• Investigate steps to increase organic composting above 60%
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• Look into how to increase the percentage of other recyclable waste that is actually recycled – which
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is likely to involve investing in additional recycling capacity

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