Desired end state

The desired end state entails identifying priorities and goals that a municipality wishes to attain with regards to waste management. Using the information collected on the historical and present waste management situation, strategic goals for the IWMP should be developed. These should aim to address the gaps and the needs of the community and more importantly should respond to the Waste Act requirements. A program on how these will be attained is developed as an implementation plan. The strategic goals must be set based on the relevant waste legislation, regulations and policies and should be guided by the waste management hierarchy principles. Further, it should also include the setting of targets for waste management services such as collection, recycling, recovery and disposal. The setting of goals, objectives and targets must also take into consideration the municipal response to the goals and targets set in the National Waste Management Strategy.

The National Waste Management Strategy provides a set of goals that municipalities must achieve in the next five years in order to give effect to the Waste Act. It contains an action plan with various targets to be achieved by municipalities in the next five years until 2016. It is important that there should be a target date by which municipal strategic goals and targets are to be attained within the 5 years from the date the IWMP has been approved.

Strategic goals can be divided into:

• Immediate: 1 year
• Short-term: 2 to 3 years
• Medium term: 3 to 5 years and
• Long-term: 5 to 10 years

Long term goals relate to targets that extend beyond the 5 year period of implementing an IWMP i.e. decommissioning and planning to develop a new waste disposal facility.

The following tables provide examples of how a desired end state for waste management strategic goals can be captured:

For example, in this particular municipality goal 1 was to promote recycling and the recovery of waste; in a tabular format this would be represented as follows: