Household affordability of sanitary landfilling is governed by cost allocation rather than metropolitan economic capacity
Abstract
Open dumping remains a dominant municipal solid waste disposal practice globally, including in megacities whose populations and economic output rival that of small countries. Sanitary landfilling is a common transition away from open dumping, yet system-level feasibility does not translate into household affordability. Here we quantify this divergence using an integrated city-scale framework that combines spatial landfill siting, engineering-based net-present-value modeling, and satellite-derived metropolitan gross domestic product. Applying this framework across six developing megacities with over 100 million residents, we find that all cities possess surplus land meeting screening-level suitability criteria. Required cost-recovery tipping fees range from 54–130 US dollars per tonne, with 5 th –95 th -percentile intervals of ±25%–30% under joint parameter uncertainty. Under full household cost recovery, these fees imply annual disposal costs equivalent to 1.2%–2.0% of the minimum wage, whereas associated revenue requirements represent only 0.26%–1.04% of metropolitan gross domestic product. Across cities, household affordability is uncorrelated with metropolitan economic capacity. Landfill depth is the dominant engineering control on affordability, particularly in high-rainfall systems, but cost allocation exerts greater leverage than any design parameter. Thus, technically and macroscopically feasible landfills may remain difficult to sustain through direct household cost recovery without cross-subsidization and public financing.
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BibTeX
@article{sato2026household,
title = {{Household affordability of sanitary landfilling is governed by cost allocation rather than metropolitan economic capacity}},
author = {Yugo Sato and Guanghao Chen},
journal = {Communications Earth \& Environment},
year = {2026},
month = nov,
doi = {10.1038/s43247-026-04208-1},
url = {https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-026-04208-1},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - Household affordability of sanitary landfilling is governed by cost allocation rather than metropolitan economic capacity
AU - Yugo Sato
AU - Guanghao Chen
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/11/03
JO - Communications Earth & Environment
DO - 10.1038/s43247-026-04208-1
UR - https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-026-04208-1
AB - Open dumping remains a dominant municipal solid waste disposal practice globally, including in megacities whose populations and economic output rival that of small countries. Sanitary landfilling is a common transition away from open dumping, yet system-level feasibility does not translate into household affordability. Here we quantify this divergence using an integrated city-scale framework that combines spatial landfill siting, engineering-based net-present-value modeling, and satellite-derived metropolitan gross domestic product. Applying this framework across six developing megacities with over 100 million residents, we find that all cities possess surplus land meeting screening-level suitability criteria. Required cost-recovery tipping fees range from 54–130 US dollars per tonne, with 5 th –95 th -percentile intervals of ±25%–30% under joint parameter uncertainty. Under full household cost recovery, these fees imply annual disposal costs equivalent to 1.2%–2.0% of the minimum wage, whereas associated revenue requirements represent only 0.26%–1.04% of metropolitan gross domestic product. Across cities, household affordability is uncorrelated with metropolitan economic capacity. Landfill depth is the dominant engineering control on affordability, particularly in high-rainfall systems, but cost allocation exerts greater leverage than any design parameter. Thus, technically and macroscopically feasible landfills may remain difficult to sustain through direct household cost recovery without cross-subsidization and public financing.
SN - 2662-4435
ER -