Nova Waste Service Standard

Pre-release. This site describes standard version 0.1.0-dev, which is in development and may change before version 1.0.0.

The Nova Waste Service Standard (NWSS) says what counts as a completed, evidenced piece of work in a community waste service: registering the places served, enrolling the people who take part, placing containers, collecting separated waste, weighing and sorting it at a facility, sending materials to offtakers, and evaluating the quality of the service. It defines the activities, the evidence each one leaves, and the methods that turn that evidence into indicators. Nova Institute NPC authors it as standards body, under Independent Impact. It is written for many projects over many years and names none of them.

Four layers, one standard

NWSS is one of four layers that together run and account for a waste service. Only the first is the standard.

  • The standard states the activities, the records they leave, the workflows that say when a piece of work is ready and when it is complete, the concept schemes records use, and the review requirements a claim must pass. It is what this site describes.
  • The operational layer (novaOS) decides what has to be done next, by whom and by when: work queues, routes, schedules and missed-service lists. It derives them from the standard’s workflows over the ledger. It is never part of the standard and never a claim.
  • The reporting layer (novaIndicators) computes indicators from the ledger by approved methodologies and shows them on dashboards. An indicator is always computed, never captured.
  • Bounties are Independent Impact payments for evidenced work. Collector remuneration, rates and income sharing are bounty terms, outside NWSS. What NWSS gives a bounty is the definition of the evidenced work it pays for.

The service journey

A service point is the place that receives the service: a household stand, business premises, a school or a communal collection point. It is the unit most observations are about. Its life runs from enumeration, through enrolment and equipment, to recurring service each service period, and possibly to exit. Select a step to read its definition.

%% The service point lifecycle, drawn by hand. Each node is mapped below to the
%% activity type or stage concept it stands for, and links to its glossary
%% entry; a node mapped by "%% workflow <node> <IRI>" links to that workflow's
%% page instead. The generator fails if a mapped IRI is missing from the corpus.
%% concept enumerate https://nova.org.za/nwss/concepts/service-point-enumeration
%% concept enrol https://nova.org.za/nwss/concepts/participant-enrolment
%% concept training https://nova.org.za/nwss/concepts/separation-training
%% concept deploy https://nova.org.za/nwss/concepts/container-deployment
%% concept equipped https://nova.org.za/nwss/concepts/stage-equipped
%% concept collect https://nova.org.za/nwss/concepts/collection-round
%% concept weigh https://nova.org.za/nwss/concepts/facility-weighing
%% concept followUp https://nova.org.za/nwss/concepts/missed-service-follow-up
%% concept evaluate https://nova.org.za/nwss/concepts/service-point-evaluation
%% concept audit https://nova.org.za/nwss/concepts/contamination-audit
%% concept offtake https://nova.org.za/nwss/concepts/material-offtake
%% concept disposal https://nova.org.za/nwss/concepts/residual-disposal
%% concept organic https://nova.org.za/nwss/concepts/organic-treatment
%% concept tags https://nova.org.za/nwss/concepts/tag-maintenance
%% concept exit https://nova.org.za/nwss/concepts/service-exit
flowchart TB
    enumerate["Service point enumeration"]
    enrol["Participant enrolment"]
    notEnrolled(["Not enrolled: revisit later"])
    deploy["Container deployment"]
    training["Separation training"]
    equipped(["Equipped: eligible for service"])
    subgraph period["Every service period"]
        direction TB
        collect["Collection round"]
        weigh["Facility weighing"]
        followUp["Missed-service follow-up"]
        collect --> weigh
        collect -.-> followUp
    end
    subgraph downstream["Where the material goes"]
        direction LR
        offtake["Material offtake"]
        organic["Organic treatment"]
        disposal["Residual disposal"]
    end
    subgraph monitoring["Sampled monitoring"]
        direction LR
        evaluate["Service point evaluation"]
        audit["Contamination audit"]
    end
    tags["Tag maintenance"]
    exit["Service exit"]
    enumerate --> enrol
    enrol --> notEnrolled
    enrol --> deploy
    deploy -.- training
    deploy --> equipped
    equipped --> collect
    weigh --> offtake
    weigh --> organic
    weigh --> disposal
    equipped -.- evaluate
    weigh -.- audit
    equipped -.- tags
    equipped --> exit
    exit -. "new signed enrolment" .-> enrol
    click enumerate "glossary/Glossary.html#service-point-enumeration"
    click enrol "glossary/Glossary.html#participant-enrolment"
    click training "glossary/Glossary.html#separation-training"
    click deploy "glossary/Glossary.html#container-deployment"
    click equipped "glossary/ServicePointStages.html#stage-equipped"
    click collect "glossary/Glossary.html#collection-round"
    click weigh "glossary/Glossary.html#facility-weighing"
    click followUp "glossary/Glossary.html#missed-service-follow-up"
    click evaluate "glossary/Glossary.html#service-point-evaluation"
    click audit "glossary/Glossary.html#contamination-audit"
    click offtake "glossary/Glossary.html#material-offtake"
    click disposal "glossary/Glossary.html#residual-disposal"
    click organic "glossary/Glossary.html#organic-treatment"
    click tags "glossary/Glossary.html#tag-maintenance"
    click exit "glossary/Glossary.html#service-exit"

  1. Service point enumeration. Each service point is registered once.
  2. Participant enrolment. Only a signed decision enrols; otherwise the service point is revisited later.
  3. Container deployment. Containers are placed for each separation stream; the service point is then equipped.
  4. Every service period, for each eligible service point:
    1. Collection round. The collector records a service outcome at the service point.
    2. Facility weighing. The collected material is weighed, sorted or unsorted.
  5. Where the material goes, evidenced at the facility:
  6. Alongside service:
  7. Service exit. Service restarts only with a new signed enrolment.

A few rules hold throughout. A record is never changed: a correction is a restatement and an event that never happened is withdrawn. What an observer sees is a claim about one entity at one time; a service point’s stage and its service status for a period are derived from dated records when read, never captured (decision). Diversion is claimed only for mass with a recorded recovery destination, and uncategorised mass never counts toward it (decision). People appear in the graph only as identifiers in roles; names and contact details stay in the project’s own register (decision).

How it was distilled

NWSS was not written from a blank page. It distils the waste-service system Nova built and ran, novaWaste2, and its live field forms: their schema, choice lists, dashboards and data models implied an ontology, concept schemes, workflows and indicators. NWSS states them explicitly and independently of any project. Every choice list became a concept scheme; every place-specific rule became a project parameter set in the project design, not in the standard.

The distillation traces each element back to its source. It is evidence, not specification: where it and the corpus disagree, the corpus governs.

Status

NWSS is a draft. No version has been released, and every element, from its activity types to its indicators, is provisional and may change. Most decisions are proposed and not yet accepted by the standards body. Data requirements, field instruments and the question register come next; their pages will appear here as they are written.