Lack of urban land for solid waste disposal and growing public pressures to increase recycling are forcing many urban areas to change traditional solid waste management practices. Development of regional solid waste management plans requires interrelated studies of technical, institutional, and financial alternatives. When the goal of the technical studies is to improve existing waste management practices and to emphasize resource recovery, the resulting physical program will require not only changes in existing practices but possibly substantial capital investment as well. Changes in solid waste management practices are bringing to light new political and organizational problems. Regional planning, regulation, and financing tends to conflict with the long history of local control. Technical solutions are erasing the political boundaries within which the problems were previously containable. The use of a separate regional agency to implement a regional solid waste program is one institutional alternative that may be justified under certain circumstances. In many cases, however, the joint powers agency offers a more flexible means of providing regional direction because it permits the broad political representation needed to deal with problems of site changes, waste transport over jurisdictional boundaries, and shifting priorities in waste management. In California, joint powers agencies have separate legal standing to sell revenue bonds on behalf of the area served. A prime consideration in resolving the political and organizational problems is to preserve and possibly to enhance the role of private industry by such means as reducing the costs of financing facilities and equipment, sharing the risk of investment in resource recovery facilities, and preserving an atmosphere of competition for solid waste franchises.