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Five questions for a fair biowaste route comparison
Would another biowaste route lower your handling cost? Put the proposals on the same basis before comparing their price per tonne.
01 · The five questions
Put the proposals on one basis
Five questions make that comparison more useful:
- 1. What are you paying for today? Include collection, transport, treatment and your own handling work. Check contract commitments and capacity limits. The existing route is the baseline every alternative must answer to.
- 2. Are the tonnes comparable? Use the same incoming stream, quality and period. Show what is rejected or removed before treatment. Base the calculation on credible actual throughput, including seasonal variation and the ramp to normal operation.
- 3. Does the cost cover the whole route? Include installed equipment, site work, financing, labour, utilities, maintenance and logistics. Keep preprocessing, secondary treatment and residue handling inside the comparison.
- 4. Which income can the case support? Check lawful uses, product specifications, buyers, saleable volumes and prices. Show what happens if the expected income does not arrive. Make any subsidy or other support explicit.
- 5. What would change the decision? Test lower utilisation, higher operating costs, weaker product sales and interruptions. Identify who carries each cost and responsibility.
02 · The routes
Assess the alternatives
Black soldier fly (BSF) bioconversion, biogas and composting can then be assessed against the current route on a common basis. A combination may also deserve a closer look.
03 · The decision
Keep the current route as an option
Manna uses this comparison to establish whether a BSF route merits further work. Keeping or improving the existing route remains a valid answer.
Which of these five questions is hardest to answer from the proposals you receive?
Keep exploring
Related topics and pages
- BSF Business Case Service: an honest go / no-go — the service that turns the facts into a decision before CAPEX
- BSF business course — where the costs, income and case validation behind a route are taught
- Articles library — the written guides this post joins
Read next
- Before spending on design: the biowaste decision — the three practical outputs that turn the facts into a decision before design spending
- Is BSF the right answer for your biowaste stream? The evaluation I actually run — the five-question test for whether a stream clears the bar
- Four Ways to Handle Biowaste — Where Each One Actually Wins — how biogas, composting, incineration and landfill each fit, and where BSF wins
- Product value needs evidence — why the product value side needs evidence before income is assumed
Next step
Put the proposals on one basis
Manna can help assemble the current handling cost, comparable tonnes and the whole route into a comparison that supports the next decision.