(in my humble opinion)
FIRST: Public Sanitation
Primarily a waste plant is a tool for public sanitation, to protect the public from biol. / chem.hazards.
SECOND: Stop Pollution
Plants need to stop waste emissions while not replacing them with waste plant emissions like polluting exhaust gases, contaminated ash or leachate going 'nowhere'.
THIRD: Local Jobs
Every project can and should replace dangerous scavenger jobs, through safer, better-paid jobs in the plant and improve acceptance.
FOURTH: No Plant is an Island
WtE plants in industrialized countries are not profitable from power sales. They are tax-financed part of a waste management infrastructure worth billions of dollars burning dry residue of source-separated waste against huge tipping fees.
MY CONCLUSIONS
1. WtE in SE Asia faces non-source separated waste, 70% below the heat value, but 3x the volume of massively contaminated leachate than in industrialized countries.
2. The idea of having power sales paying for all the above goals is an Asian myth, hearsay used to deflect pressure to act from public administrations.
3. Only Adaptive Plant Design can counter-balance the missing source-separation / safe final disposal - not mass-burn incinerators with reception pits.