Production Theory and Community Services Planning: Application to Solid Waste Disposal

A basic management responsibility in community service planning is to evaluate alternative methods of providing various public goods and services such as transportation services, sewage and solid waste disposal, and water for home and industry. These alternative methods frequently involve new or different technologies and various combinations of inputs such as capital and labor.For example, in the disposal of solid waste, the use of different sizes and types of bulldozers, compactors and cranes may lead to significantly different combinations of capital and labor resources. For accurate analysis, the quality and quantity of the service that can be provided with limited amounts of the various resources or inputs must be considered. Thus, the basic concepts that have been used in private business to allocate limited resources to obtain the desired output are equally applicable to the management and planning of community services.