Regional Interindustry Solid Waste Forecasting Model

The Leontief Input-Output model of the economy has the following advantages over the traditional methods: (1) it accounts for the waste implications of industrial interdependencies in the productive sector of the economy; (2) it uses a well-known classification scheme to classify waste producing activities; (3) it allows the use of regularly collected governmental data on activity levels; and (4) it can be used to assess the full impact of changes in consumer tastes, capital investment, government policies, export demand, and production technology in terms of waste impact multipliers. Solid waste classifications, coefficients, and impact multipliers are analyzed. It is suggested that waste impact multipliers be used to identify industries with the greatest potential for indirect waste generation through their dependence on other high waste generation industries. The technique is applied to the Nine County San Francisco Bay Area Region. Waste coefficients and impact multipliers are determined for 28 industrial sectors, as well as a 12-year forecast of total waste by sector.