Www.ecy.wa.gov/beyondwaste/cei_background_11_09.pdf. Measuring the Environmental Benefits with Sound Resource Management - Zerowaste in the 21st Century. MEBCalc™ (Measuring the Environmental Benefits Calculator) is Sound Resource Management’s proprietary software for computing the environmental footprint of a community’s municipal solid waste (MSW) management system, from collection through final disposition of each discarded product or packaging material.
Environmental impacts covered in the footprint include climate change, public health (respiratory disease, cancer, and toxicity), ecosystem toxicity, waterway nutrification, and acid rain. MEBCalc™ computes environmental costs and benefits of a community’s choices for waste diversion and disposal methods over the full life cycle of each product and packaging material in the community’s MSW, from resource extraction and refining through production to end-of-life fate. These economic values for the environment can then be compared to the traditional financial costs and benefits of each waste management method for each MSW component. (Click on the image below to see a larger graph.)