Professor David C Wilson is co-author of two recently published original research articles on cost estimation and cost function analysis for waste management in developing countries. DCW has been working for several years as an external supervisor with Shantha Parthan, a PhD student at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand. Shantha’s research is on improved cost planning for municipal solid waste management in developing countries, where problems are severe, expectations for improvements are high, but finances are constrained.
One paper is Cost estimation for solid waste management in industrialising regions – Precedents, problems and prospects, published in the March 2012 issue of the journal Waste Management, 32(3) 584–594, which examines alternative approaches used in both industrialised and industrialising countries. The other is Cost function analysis for solid waste management: a developing country experience, published in the May 2012 issue of Waste Management & Research, 30(5) 485–491, which explores the potential use of cost functions, using as a case study an extensive data set covering some 300 Indian cities.