Where waste systems fail, and what it costs

In many low and middle-income cities, collection still reaches fewer than half of households, and service often stops at the districts that are easiest to reach. Much of what is collected goes to uncontrolled landfills or open dumps, where burning is routine. The consequence is a chain of pollution: leachate in aquifers and surface water, contaminated agricultural soil, and smoke that residents and waste workers breathe every day.

Electronic waste follows the same pattern with higher stakes. Informal recovery dominates. Cables and housings are burned in the open to recover copper and steel, printed circuit boards are stripped for precious metals by crude methods, and the residues, boards included, are dumped. Separation and collection systems for hazardous components are frequently missing altogether.

The data gap behind poor decisions

Emission data for open dumps, unsanitary landfills and open burning is largely absent from standard commercial life cycle inventory datasets and remains scarce in the published literature. Figures from engineered landfills in industrialised countries do not transfer: leachate volume and quality, landfill gas generation and long-term behaviour all shift with climate, arid or very humid, and with a waste composition far from the one those models were built on.

Why the pressure on waste authorities is rising

Waste now sits inside national climate plans, methane reduction commitments and extended producer responsibility schemes. The funders behind new waste infrastructure expect a quantified baseline, credible alternatives and a monitoring plan before they commit capital. Authorities that can put those numbers on the table move first.

What DEISO covers

Municipal solid waste and e-waste, across the full life cycle, from generation to recovery and final disposal.

How an engagement runs

1. BaselineInventory the current system: generation, composition, collection coverage, disposal routes and informal flows, with emission estimates matched to the local climate.
2. ScenariosBuild alternative integrated systems covering generation, collection, transport, recycling, energy recovery and safe disposal.
3. AssessmentCompare every scenario on environmental, health, social and economic performance through life cycle assessment and cost analysis.
4. DecisionSelect the most advantageous system on explicit trade-offs, and prepare the cost-recovery and investment case behind it.
5. Implementation supportPlanning, technology development and consultation as the selected system moves into execution.

Outputs built for decision-makers

• Full inventory — the data behind every result, open to technical review.
• Impact-by-impact comparison — each environmental concern compared across scenarios in a format non-specialists can read.
• Cost and revenue model — expenses, revenues and cost recovery for each system.
• Priority issues — the most pressing environmental problems identified and ranked for action.

Who we work with

Local municipalities, national and local governments, waste management companies, NGOs, international funding organisations, investors, research institutes and academic institutions.

Industrial and upstream waste

For manufacturers, DEISO’s upstream waste solutions address waste at the production stage, for companies working toward more sustainable manufacturing.