The MSW Decision Support Tool (DST) is intended for use by solid waste planners at state and local levels to analyze and compare MSW management strategies with respect to GHGs and also cost, energy consumption, and environmental releases to air, land, and water (more than 30 air- and water-borne pollutants). It models emissions associated with municipal waste activities, including source reduction, waste collection and transportation, materials recovery facilities, transfer stations, compost facilities, combustion and refuse-derived fuel facilities, and landfills. The MSW DST can be used to optimize the system given constraints (e.g. determine the most cost-effective strategy for reaching specific policy goals, such as diverting 40% landfill waste). Text taken from the EPA's "Software to Cut Emissions" fact sheet. MSW DST requires detailed input information about the community's waste stream composition and operating information. Currently it is only available via support from Research Triangle Institute (contact the Climate Change Research team).
Examples where communities have used MSW DST include: California's 2010 Life Cycle Assessment and Economic Analysis of Organic Waste Management and GHG Reduction Options and St. Paul, Washington State, and a composting facility in North Carolina.
EPA has done a comprehensive comparison of the WARM and MSW-DST tools. EPA does not recommend one in lieu of the other, but rather recommends choosing your tool based on the scope of analysis. Great effort has been made to reconcile differences between the two tools, such that given identical assumptions, the tools would yield identical results. The only major methodological difference between the tools is treatment of carbon storage and sequestration. MSW-DST reports carbon storage and sequestration separately. As of early 2011, MSW DST is not available free-of-charge, while WARM is. There are plans to make MSW-DST available at no cost in the future.