text:
'Regardless of the context, managing solid waste is one of the biggest challenges of
urban areas of all sizes, from mega-cities to the small towns and large villages, which are
home to the majority of humankind … [This publication] seeks to showcase the good
work that is being done on solid waste by cities around the world, large and small, rich
and poor … It endeavours to help decision-makers, practitioners and ordinary citizens
understand how a solid waste management system works and to inspire people
everywhere to make their own decisions on the next steps in developing a solution
appropriate to their own city's particular circumstances and needs.'
Anna tibaijuka, Under-Secretary General of the United nations and executive director of Un-habitat
In our rapidly urbanizing global society, solid waste management will be a key challenge
facing all the world's cities. Solid Waste Management in the World's Cities provides a fresh
perspective and new data on one of the biggest issues in urban development.
Using the framework of Integrated Sustainable Waste Management (ISWM), the report
the United nations human Settlements Programme (Un-habitat) promotes socially and WAter And SAnitAtion in the World'S CitieS 2010
environmentally sustainable towns and cities with the goal of providing adequate shelter
for all.
Cover credits:
Top image © Jeroen IJgosse
'Garbage' © istockphoto.com
London • Washington, DC
First published in 2010 by Earthscan for and on behalf of the United Nations Human Settlements Programme
The designations employed and the presentation of the material in this publication do not imply the expression of any
opinion whatsoever on the part of the Secretariat of the United Nations concerning the legal status of any country, terri-
tory, city or area, or of its authorities, or concerning delimitation of its frontiers or boundaries, or regarding its economic
system or degree of development. The analysis, conclusions and recommendations of the report do not necessarily reflect
the views of the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-HABITAT), the Governing Council of UN-HABITAT
or its Member States.
Earthscan Ltd, Dunstan House, 14a St Cross Street, London EC1N 8XA, UK
Earthscan LLC, 1616 P Street, NW, Washington, DC 20036, USA
Earthscan publishes in association with the International Institute for Environment and Development
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
At Earthscan we strive to minimize our environmental impacts and carbon footprint through reducing waste, recycling
and offsetting our CO2 emissions, including those created through publication of this book. For more details of our envi-
ronmental policy, see www.earthscan.co.uk.
Anna Tibaijuka
Under-Secretary General, United Nations
Executive Director, UN-Habitat
The Water and Sanitation in the World's Cities series, published every three years, was mandated by
UN-HABITAT Governing Council Resolution 19/6, adopted on 9 May 2003, following the publication of
the first edition, Water and Sanitation in the World's Cities: Local Action for Global Goals, in March 2003.
This was followed by the production of the second edition, Meeting Development Goals in Small Urban
Centres: Water and Sanitation in the World's Cities 2006.
This current production of Solid Waste Management in the World Cities was funded by the Water
and Sanitation Trust Fund of UN-HABITAT, currently supported by the Governments of Spain, the
Netherlands and Norway.
The report was prepared under the overall substantive guidance of Bert Diphoorn, Ag. Director,
Human Settlements Financing Division. The conceptualization of the report and the management of its
production was undertaken by Graham Alabaster who was supported by Paul Onyango.
The substantive preparation of the report was undertaken by WASTE, Advisers on Urban
Environment and Development. Anne Scheinberg, (WASTE and Wageningen University and Research
Centre), David C. Wilson (Imperial College) and Ljiljana Rodic-Wiersma (Wageningen University and
Research Centre) were the principal authors/editors. They were supported by a team who made
substantial contributions, comprising Lilia G. C. Casanova (CAPS); Bharati Chaturvedi (Chintan
Environmental Research and Action Group); Manus Coffey (Manus Coffey Associates); Sanjay K.
Gupta and Jeroen IJgosse (Independent Consultants); Reka Soos (Green Partners Romania); and
Andrew Whiteman (Wasteaware). The report would not have been possible without the dedication,
commitment, professionalism, and passion which the contributing authors undertook their work.
The report benefited from a number of consultations attended by eminent researchers and solid
waste management experts. In early 2009, an outline of the report was prepared and in May 2009 the
first expert group meeting took place in Gouda, the Netherlands to review the annotated outline.
Participants in the expert group included Manus Coffey (Manus Coffey Associates), Edward Stentiford
(Leeds University), Sonia Dias, Oscar Espinoza, Sanjay Gupta, Kossara Kisheva, Michael Simpson,
Portia Sinnott, Reka Soos, Ljiljana Rodic, Anne Scheinberg, Andy Whiteman, David Wilson, Verele de
Vreede, Lilliana Abarca, Ivo Haenen, Valentin Post and Alodia Ishengoma. Bert Diphoorn, Graham
Alabaster and Paul Onyango oversaw the process for UN-HABITAT. A number of contributors and
researchers were identified at the consultations for preparing the 20 city inserts and the key sheets for
the report.
The contributors and writers for the city profiles were: Adelaide, Australia by Andrew Whiteman
(Wasteaware) and Rebecca Cain (Hyder Consulting); Bamako, Mali by Modibo Keita (CEK, Cabinet
d'Etudes Kala Saba), Erica Trauba (WASTE Intern), Mandiou Gassama, Bakary Diallo, and Mamadou
Traoré, (CEK); Bengaluru, India by Sanjay K. Gupta (Senior Advisor and Consultant Water, Sanitation
and Livelihood), Smt. Hemalatha (KBE, MTech.), BMP Environmental Engineer, Bruhat Bangalore
Mahangara Palike, and Anselm Rosario (WasteWise Resource Centre); Belo Horizonte, Brazil by Sônia
Maria Dias, Jeroen IIgosse, Raphael T. V. Barros (UFMG), and the team of the Planning Department of
SLU; Cañete, Peru by Oscar Espinoza, Humberto Villaverde (IPES), Jorge Canales and Cecilia Guillen;
Curepipe, Mauritius by Professor Edward Stentiford (University of Leeds, UK) and Professor Romeela
Mohee (The University of Mauritius, Mauritius); Delhi, India by Malati Gadgil, Anupama Pandey,
Bharati Chaturvedi and Prakash Shukla (Chintan Environmental Research and Action Group),
Irmanda Handayani (WASTE and Chintan Evironmental), Jai Prakash Choudhury/Santu and Safai
Sena; Dhaka, Bangladesh by Andrew Whiteman (Wasteaware), Monir Chowdhury (Commitment
Consultants), Shafiul Azam Ahmed, Dr Tariq bin Yusuf (DCC), Prof. Ghulam Murtaza (Khulna
University) and Dr Ljiljana Rodic (Wageningen University); Ghorahi, Nepal by Bhushan Tuladhar
(ENPHO, Environment and Public Health Organization); Kunming, China by Ljiljana Rodic and Yang
Yuelong (Wageningen University); Lusaka, Zambia by Michael Kaleke Kabungo (Lusaka City Council –
Waste Management Unit) and Rueben Lupupa Lifuka (Riverine Development Associates); Managua,
Nicaragua by Jane Olley (Technical Advisor for UN-HABITAT Improving Capacity for Solid Waste
Management in Managua Programme), Jeroen IJgosse (Facilitator and International Consultant for UN-
HABITAT Programme "Improving Capacity for Solid Waste Management in Managua"), Victoria Rudin
(Director of the Central American NGO ACEPESA, partner organization for UN-HABITAT Improving
Capacity for Solid Waste Management in Managua Programme), Mabel Espinoza, Wilmer Aranda,
Juana Toruño and Tamara Yuchenko (Technical Committee from Municipality of Managua for UN-
HABITAT Improving Capacity for Solid Waste Management in Managua Programme); Moshi, Tanzania
by Mrs Alodia Ishengoma (Independent Consultant), Ms. Bernadette Kinabo (Municipal Director
Moshi), Dr Christopher Mtamakaya (Head of Health and Cleansing Department), Ms Viane Kombe
(Head of Cleansing Section), Miss Fidelista Irongo (Health Secretary), Mr Lawrence Mlay
(Environmental Health Officer); Nairobi, Kenya by Misheck Kirimi (NETWAS), Leah Oyake-Ombis,
Director of Environment, City Council of Nairobi / Wageningen University) and Ljiljana Rodic
(Wageningen University); Quezon City, the Philippines by Ms Lizette Cardenas (SWAPP), Ms Lilia
Casanova (CAPS), Hon Mayor Feliciano Belmonte, Hon Vice Mayor Herbert Bautista, Quezon City
Councilors, Quezon City Environmental Protection and Waste Management Department headed by Ms
Frederika Rentoy, Payatas Operations Group, Quezon City Planning and Development Office, Ms
Andrea Andres-Po and Mr Paul Andrew M. Tatlonghari of QC-EPWMD; Rotterdam, The Netherlands
by Frits Fransen (ROTEB retired), Joost van Maaren, Roelof te Velde (ROTEB), Anne Scheinberg and
Ivo Haenen (WASTE); San Francisco, USA by Portia M. Sinnott (Reuse, Recycling and Zero Waste
Consultant) and Kevin Drew (City of San Francisco Special Projects and Residential Zero Waste
Coordinator); Sousse, Tunisia by Verele de Vreede (WASTE), Tarek Mehri, and Khaled Ben Adesslem
(Muncipality of Sousse); Tompkins County, USA by Barbara Eckstrom (Tompkins County Solid Waste
Manager), Kat McCarthy (Tompkins County Waste Reduction and Recycling Specialist), Portia M.
Sinnott (Reuse, Recycling and Zero Waste Consultant) and Anne Scheinberg (WASTE); and Varna,
Bulgaria by Kossara Bozhilova-Kisheva and Lyudmil Ikonomov (CCSD Geopont-Intercom).
The key sheet authors were Ellen Gunsilius and Sandra Spies (GTZ), Lucia Fernandez and Chris
Bonner (WIEGO), Jarrod Ball (Golder Associates), Nadine Dulac (World Bank Institute), Alodia
Ishengoma (ILO), A. H. M. Maqsood Sinha and Iftekhar Enayetullah (Waste Concern), Jeroen IJgosse,
Manus Coffey, Lilia Casanova, Ivo Haenen, Michael Simpson, David C. Wilson, Valentin Post (WASTE),
Choudhury R. C. Mohanty (UNCRD), Bharati Chaturvedi, Anne Scheinberg, Andy Whiteman
(WasteAware), Valentina Popovska (IFC), Frits Fransen, Arun Purandhare, Sanjay K. Gupta and
Ljiljana Rodic-Wiersma.
The second Expert Group Meeting was jointly organized by UN-HABITAT and WASTE, with a
great deal of support from Dr Laila Iskandar and the staff of CID Consulting, Zemalek, in Cairo, Egypt
in October 2009. The expert group meeting reviewed the draft and recommended a reorganization and
further expansion of report.
The production management for the team was handled by Verele de Vreede (WASTE). Ivo Haenen
(WASTE), Michael Simpson (Antioch New England) and Portia M. Sinnott (Lite) were in charge of data
management while the writing and research team members were Sônia M. Dias, Oscar Espinoza,
Irmanda Handayani, Kossara Kisheva-Bozhilovska and Erica Trauba. Photo and graphic editors were
Verele de Vreede and Jeroen IJgosse.
Solid Waste Management in the World's Cities
The report was widely circulated among UN-HABITAT professional staff members and consult-
ants, and benefited from their review, comments and inputs. Valuable contributions were made by
Graham Alabaster, Andre Dzikus, Paul Onyango, Daniel Adom and Debashish Bhattacharjee.
Antoine King and his team of the Programme Support Division, Marcellus Chege, Veronica
Njuguna, Grace Wanjiru and Helda Wandera of Water, Sanitation and Infrastructure Branch of UN-
HABITAT and Margaret Mathenge of UNON provided valuable administrative support.
Special thanks are due to our publishers, Earthscan, led by Jonathan Sinclair Wilson, with
Hamish Ironside and Claire Lamont. Their support in working to extreme deadlines is gratefully
acknowledged. Special recognition goes to Arnold van de Klundert, Founder of WASTE, who, with
support from Justine Anschutz, distilled the ISWM framework in the course of the Urban Waste
Expertise Programme.
This publication is dedicated to the memory of Brian Williams, who passed away during its
production. Brian was heavily involved in previous editions of this report.
Foreword v
Acknowledgements vi
Contents ix
List of Figures, Tables and Boxes xii
List of Acronyms and Abbreviations xvii
1 Executive Summary 1
Bharati Chaturvedi
City Inserts 41
Adelaide 46
Bamako 48
Belo Horizonte 50
Bengaluru 52
Cañete 54
Curepipe 56
Delhi 58
Dhaka 60
Ghorahi 62
Kunming 64
Lusaka 66
Managua 68
Moshi 70
Nairobi 72
Quezon City 74
Rotterdam 76
San Francisco 78
Sousse 80
Tompkins County 82
Varna 84
2.1 A world of variation in classifying MSW composition in the reference cities 12
2.2 The integrated sustainable waste management (ISWM) framework 27
3.1 Process flow diagram for Cañete, Peru 33
3.2 Process flow diagram for Lusaka, Zambia, from the GTZ/CWG (2007) report 34
3.3 Process flow diagram for Delhi, India 35
4.1 Collection coverage for non-slum and slum households 88
4.2 Waste management hierarchy 105
4.3 Stepwise progression controlling disposal 109
K9.1 How the Clean Development Mechanism project uses public, private and community cooperation 119
K18.1 Carbon market growth in 2008 180
K18.2 Who is buying and who is selling carbon credits? 182
5.1 Regulation process of solid waste in Peru 194
K2.1 Healthcare waste generation by income level 8
2.1 Municipal solid waste generation in the reference cities 11
2.2 Waste composition in the reference cities 12
2.3 Estimates of current world MSW generation and projections of what it might become 13
2.4 Relevance of improved SWM to the Millennium Development Goals 25
3.1 The reference cities 30
3.2 Values of a short set of indicators in the reference cities 38
4.1 Waste collection rates in urban areas in selected Latin American and African countries 96
4.2 Average collection coverage in the reference cities, in ranked order from 100 per cent 96
4.3 Percentage of fleet working in the reference cities 101
4.4 Feedback mechanisms and satisfaction levels 102
4.5 Waste disposal in the reference cities 108
K9.1 Impact of carbon financing on total investment 121
K11.1 Citywide generation of solid waste in the six GTZ/CWG (2007) cities 129
K11.2 Composition of waste in the six GTZ/CWG (2007) cities and in cities in the US and The Netherlands 129
K11.3 Material recovered by the formal and informal sector 130
K11.4 Informal-sector collection of recovered material in the six cities 130
K11.5 Informal-sector income and earnings from recycling in the study cities 131
K11.6 Modelled total solid waste materials handling system costs per tonne, net costs per tonne and total
net costs for the whole sector for all tonnes handled by that sector 131
K12.1 Dutch national recycling goals in 2008 and their achievement levels in Rotterdam 133
List of figures, tables and boxes
4.6 Reference city recycling rates as a percentage of municipal solid waste 134
4.7 Actual recovery rates vs recovery targets in the reference cities 135
4.8 Destinations of organic waste in the reference cities 135
4.9 Optimizing recovery by building on successes 136
5.1 Participation and inclusivity in the reference cities 154
5.2 Profile of informal activities in solid waste 156
5.3 Informal and formal participation in waste system 160
5.4 Institutional context for inclusive provider practices 161
5.5 Understanding revenues and values of different types of materials to be recycled 169
5.6 Waste management costs and budgeting in the reference cities 170
5.7 Annual municipal waste management budget calculations 171
5.8 Sources of operational funds: Revenues 172
5.9 Fees and incentives 173
5.10 Sources of funds 175
5.11 Benchmark indicators for sustainable financing 176
K18.1 Numbers of projects and programmes 179
K18.2 Preparedness of the projects 179
K18.3 Carbon market at a glance: Volumes and values, 2007–2008 180
K18.4 Issuance rate in 2009 for CDM landfill gas and composting projects 181
K18.5 Verified emissions reductions for landfill gas, composting and incineration projects in the voluntary
carbon market in 2009 181
K18.6 List of current methodologies 183
5.12 Professional recognition 201
S.1 Some recent solid waste crises xix
K3.1 Health risks for waste workers and recyclers 16
2.1 Waste management and climate change 20
2.2 Plague-like epidemic in Surat, India 21
2.3 Integrated sustainable waste management (ISWM) 27
4.1 The economic cost of poor waste management 89
4.2 Importance of waste for the Silicon Valley of India 97
4.3 Collecting air in Byala, Bulgaria 97
4.4 Beijing Spring Festival 98
4.5 Principles of a good collection service 98
4.6 Taking waste matters into their own hands 99
4.7 The motorization debate in Bamako, Mali 100
4.8 A tale of two cities (in one) 100
4.9 Swatchh Mitra in Bengaluru 102
4.10 Creating trust and willingness to pay in Nairobi 102
4.11 Public engagement for enhanced recycling in the UK 103
4.12 Dandora among the dirty 30 104
4.13 A crisis stimulates change 105
4.14 The Matuail landfill, Dhaka, Bangladesh 110
4.15 Failed treatment facilities in India 114
4.16 Understanding the function of technology 114
Solid Waste Management in the World's Cities
4.17 Beware the 'magic solution' salesman 115
K9.1 Compost plant in Bulta, Narayanganj – a capacity of 130 tonnes per day 121
4.18 The Maraichers: Agricultural supply chain sink for the Bamako waste problem 126
4.19 Economic Aspects of the Informal Sector in Solid Waste, 2007 127
4.20 Plastic bag reduction 136
4.21 Institutionalizing the sink value of recycling in The Netherlands 138
4.22 A scrap of decency 139
5.1 Public interest litigation in India: Sugar PIL or bitter PIL? 142
5.2 Programa de Selo Verde, Ceará State, Brazil 149
5.3 Participatory urban waste planning in Vietnam 155
5.4 Siting the new Tompkins County landfill 156
5.5 The early bird gets the … e-waste 160
5.6 Framing social dialogue and social inclusion in Brazil 162
5.7 Legal backing for waste-pickers in Cali, Colombia 162
5.8 The Swabhimana platform: Key to waste planning in Bengaluru 163
5.9 COGEVAD: A stakeholder platform in Mali 163
5.10 Integrating user feedback mechanisms with municipal monitoring and supervising tasks in Quezon City 163
5.11 Involving the community in assessing collection routes in Catia La Mar, Venezuela 164
5.12 Where there is a will, there is a way 166
5.13 Making getting to know your costs a priority, from Hong Kong to Nicaragua 171
5.14 Belo Horizonte, Brazil 172
5.15 Why the donkeys of Bamako, Mali, were dying in 1999 172
5.16 Considerations when setting up revenue collection strategies 174
5.17 Recovering costs of collection in Bengaluru, Karnataka State, India 177
5.18 Urban environmental accords: Setting an example in policy commitments 191
5.19 Separating the political head from the administrative body: Different experiences from the reference cities 192
5.20 Sector analysis leading to change at all policy levels 194
5.21 Reserving land for a landfill to avoid being caught by surprise 195
5.22 Roles in waste management 196
5.23 Owning up for the landfill in Bamako, Mali 197
5.24 Working together in Brazil 198
5.25 International Labour Organization (ILO) micro-franchising in Africa 199
5.26 Safi youth group in Mombasa, Kenya 199
A good solid waste management system is like technical and economic approaches that work in,
good health: if you are lucky to have it, you don't say, Denmark or Canada or Japan may not work
notice it; it is just how things are, and you take it in your country. As in most other human endeav-
for granted. On the other hand, if things go ours, 'the best is the enemy of the good'.
wrong, it is a big and urgent problem and every- There is only one sure winning strategy,
thing else seems less important. and that is to understand and build upon the
Managing solid waste well and affordably is strengths of your own city – to identify, capital-
one of the key challenges of the 21st century, and ize on, nurture and improve the indigenous
one of the key responsibilities of a city govern- processes that are already working well. These
ment. It may not be the biggest vote-winner, but may well be outside the 'formal' waste manage-
it has the capacity to become a full-scale crisis, ment system provided by the city – the research
and a definite vote-loser, if things go wrong. for his book shows that the informal and micro-
This note to decision-makers introduces enterprise sectors in many developing country
UN-Habitat's Third Global Report on Water and cities are often achieving recycling rates, compa-
Sanitation in the World's Cities: Solid Waste rable to those reached in Europe and North
Management in the World's Cities. America only after years of high investment by Urban cities
continue to expand
A unique feature of the book is that it is the city. For example, the research for this book
to areas with
based on new information, collected in a stan- shows that informal recyclers handle 27 per cent difficult accessibility,
posing a challenge
dardized format, from 20 reference cities around of the waste generated in Delhi; if they were to
for collecting waste
the world. The cities demonstrate a range of disappear, the city would have to pay its contrac- from these
urban solid waste and recycling systems across tors to collect and dispose of an additional 1800
The example from
six continents and illustrate how solid waste tonnes of waste every day. Caracas,Venezuela
is representative for
management works in practice in tropical and The overall aim of the book is to facilitate
many Latin
temperate zones, in small and large cities, in rich actors in cities everywhere – the mayor, other American cities.
and poor countries, and at a variety of scales. politicians, officials, citizens, non-governmental © Jeroen IJgosse
1 Strasser, 1999.
2 Spaargaren and van Vliet,
2000; Scheinberg, in press.
Solid Waste Management in the World's Cities
Lilia Casanova (Center for Advanced Philippine Studies – CAPS)
Rapid urbanization, increasing industrialization, Singapore and South Korea are responding
rising incomes and a more sophisticated form of to this challenge by testing the usefulness of
consumerism are leading to an increase in the public–private partnership (PPP) schemes for
amount and toxicity of waste in middle-income waste-to-energy plants. While being clear that
Asian countries, especially in the cities. government has to play the dominant role to
According to the World Bank, urban areas in ensure efficient waste management, regional
Asia generate about 760,000 tonnes of municipal interest in private-sector involvement is growing.
solid waste (MSW), or approximately 2.7 million In 2008, Singapore announced the Keppel
cubic metres, per day. In 2025, this figure will Seghers Tuas Waste-to-Energy Plant (KSTP) to
increase to 1.8 million tonnes of waste per day, be operated under a design–build–own–operate
or 5.2 million cubic metres of waste. 1 Countries (DBOO) scheme.2 In South Korea, a similar PPP
report a rapid increase in hazardous materials in with Aquentium Inc will implement and operate
the waste stream, as well as in recyclable paper, a 1000-tonne-per-day waste-to-energy processing
The sanitary landfill
of San Fernando
plastic and metal. Densely populated cities in plant.
City, La Union was Singapore, Japan, Thailand, Malaysia, South Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand and Sri
developed using the
so-called design–
Korea, Indonesia, China and the Philippines are Lanka, with somewhat lower gross domestic
build–own–operate thus under pressure to modernize their solid product (GDP) and a later entry into the modern-
DBOO scheme for
waste systems, bring their waste streams under ization process, are making progress in
involvement control, and shift from pure disposal to recovery developing regulatory frameworks to institution-
© Quezon City of both energy and materials. alize ISWM, in part to cope with increasing
waste challenges due to tourism. Alerted by the
collapse of the Payatas dumpsite in 2000, which
killed more than 200 waste-pickers, the
Philippines passed the Ecological Solid Waste
Management Act in 2001 and created a National
Solid Waste Management Commission to oversee
policy implementation nationwide.
In the case of Malaysia, the desire to feder-
alize solid waste management (SWM) and move
the country to the status of a developed nation
by 2020 has led it to introduce a new 2007 Solid
Waste Management and Public Cleansing Act.3
A note to decision-makers
In Thailand, the growing tourism industry is trig-
gering infrastructure improvements in
transportation, hotels and ISWM in Bangkok,
Chiang Mai, Phuket and other tourist destina-
tions. Sanitary landfills and incineration plants
have replaced open dumpsites. New recycling
centres, such as, the Pobsuk Recycling Centre,
are being operated on a pilot scale.
Starting in the 1990s, Asia has been host to
a number of national and regional initiatives in
SWM. The World Bank's Metropolitan
Environmental Improvement Programme (MEIP)4
is credited for solid waste management improve-
ments in large cities in Asia, such as Beijing,
Bombay, Colombo, Jakarta, Metro Manila and,
later, Kathmandu. Between 1994 and 1998, the Environmental Ministry, and organized in 2008 Waste-pickers on
South-East Asia Local Solid Waste Improvement the Payatas landfill
by the Institute for Global Environmental site in Quezon City
Project (SEALSWIP),5 a Canadian International Strategies (IGES), a research and development in 2007. A major
Development Agency (CIDA) assistance landslide at this site
(R&D) institution in Japan.6 It involves govern- in 2000 killed some
programme, successfully assisted communities in ments, donor agencies and scientific institutes in 200 people.
the Philippines, Thailand and Indonesia in vari- 12 Asian countries. With support from the © SWAPP
ous aspects of SWM, including organizing Japanese government, it aims to promote policy
waste-pickers and junk shops; setting up a 'waste development and projects on the 3Rs (reduce,
bank' for recyclables; siting landfills; and provid- reuse, recycle). Another new regional initiative is
ing training on hazardous waste management. the Asian Development Bank's (ADB's) Cities
From 1996 to 2001, the Sustainable Cities Development Initiative for Asia (CDIA),7 estab-
Programme, a joint programme of UN-Habitat lished in 2008, which is investing in public
and the United Nations Environment Programme transport, solid waste, methane capture and
(UNEP), assisted cities in China, India, Sri other urban management priorities. During the
Lanka, the Philippines and Indonesia to set up same year, the European Union (EU) reintroduced
solid waste management systems. In 2002, UNEP its Asia Pro Eco Programme8 on environmental
and its International Environmental Technology management, which includes solid waste
Centre (IETC) organized an Association of management. AusAid, on the other hand, directs
Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) High-Level more of its support to the Pacific Island countries
Consultation (HLC) Group to establish a policy- than to Asia.9
level forum to deal with solid waste issues. The Donor contributions have come in different
HLC heightened awareness on the urgency of the forms (i.e. grants, loans, and technical and expert
problem in the region and encouraged the pursuit assistance) and have influenced Asian people's
of national initiatives in SWM. The Kitakyushu habits and perceptions about solid waste in
Initiative, which came out during the Ministerial different ways. The World Bank is, especially,
Conference on Environment and Development in perceived to have been effective in introducing
2002 in Kitakyushu, Japan, has been a continu- the concept of the 3Rs, materials recovery and
ing source of technical and financial assistance sanitary landfills. CIDA was found to be effective
by many countries in Asia for SWM. in community organizing for waste collection and
The latest initiative in ISWM in Asia is the recycling, while the Deutsche Gesellschaft für
Regional 3Rs Forum financed by the Japanese Technische Zusammenarbeit (GTZ) gets some
Solid Waste Management in the World's Cities
credit for introducing sanitary landfills to some over the last 30 years. From US$151.9 million
countries in South-East Asia. But Japan, through invested between 1974 and 1988,10 the World
the Kitakyushu Initiative, has been the champion Bank's investment in SWM increased to
for establishing composting, integrated solid US$1.538 billion in 2004,11 or almost ten times
waste management systems and recycling. in a period of 16 years. The ADB, on the other
Not all donor assistance is equally effective hand, just recently signed (in 2009) a US$200
in providing lasting positive impacts and many million loan package for China Everbright
activities ceased or failed after external support International Limited to develop a clean waste-
was removed. Various technical, financial, insti- to-energy project in the People's Republic of
tutional, economic and social constraints faced China.12 China has received a total of US$21
by both the recipient countries/cities and exter- billion in loans financing since joining the ADB in
nal support agencies form constraints, combined 1986, making it the second largest ADB
with limited resources available to resolve the borrower and client for private-sector financing.
problems. During the early 1990s, for instance, These investments made during the last 20 years
many incineration plants installed in some cities have served as 'seed' financing for Asian coun-
in the Philippines and Indonesia with assistance tries to effectively develop a framework for SWM
from the World Bank ended up as white – in particular, to establish and modernize their
elephants, never to be used because the high institutions and institutional arrangements that
organic content of the waste streams meant that will embed in the minds of their nationals the
the waste was not incinerable. importance of waste segregation and the basic
But, on the whole, in Asia regional initia- principles of the 3Rs. In the process, the foreign-
tives appear to be particularly good investments. assisted projects or programmes have also
The main funders of development in the region, supported national champions in SWM who will
the World Bank and the ADB, have allocated ensure that the work will be sustained.
substantial amounts for solid waste management
1 World Bank (1999) What 4 Metropolitan newsbits/EU-Asia_ March,
a Waste: Solid Waste Environment Waste_Management_ http://akseli.tekes.fi/
Management in Asia, May, Improvement Conference.pdf. opencms/opencms/
www.worldbank.org/ Programme in Asia, 9 Hisashi Ogawa (undated) OhjelmaPortaali/
urban/solid_wm/erm/ World Bank,1998, 'Sustainable solid waste ohjelmat/Streams/fi/
CWG%20folder/ www-wds.worldbank.org/. management in develop- Dokumenttiarkisto/
uwp1.pdf. 5 SEALSWIP, ing countries', Paper Viestinta_ja_aktivointi/
2 'NEA raises efforts to www.icsc.ca/content/ presented at the Seventh Julkaisut/Kansainvaliset_
achieve recycling target history/sealswip/ ISWA International selvitykset/WB_Waste_
of 70% by 2030', 12 lessons.html. Congress and Exhibition, management_report.pdf.
August 2009, 6 Press release: Towards the. www.gdrc.org/uem/waste 12 'ADB supports $200 M
www.nea.gov.sg. Establishment of the /swm-fogawa1.htm. waste-to-energy project',
3 National Seminar on Regional 3R Forum, 10 Bartone et al, 1990. ADB, 2009,
Sustainable Environment www.uncrd.or.jp/env/spc/. 11 Annamari Paimela- www.greeneconomy
through the New Solid 7 ADB's Cities Wheler, 2004, World Bank initiative.com/news/183/
Waste Management and Development Initiatives Financed Waste ARTICLE/1688/2009-
Public Cleansing Act in Asia: w ww.adb.org. Management Projects: 09-03.html.
2007, 31 July 2008, 8 Sustainable Waste Overview of the Waste
www.wmam.org/ Management Cycle Management Markets and
index.php?option= (SWMC) brochure, Trends in Developing
com_content&task= www.iclei-europe.org/ Countries and Prospects for
view&id=91&Itemid=2. fileadmin/user_upload/ Finnish Companies, 5
Bharati Chaturvedi
Of the many common threads that bind cities copy them as a means of cleaning the city. It
across the world, waste handling, is possibly one might not work if it lacks local relevance and
of the strongest. Regardless of the context, local buy-in. Just as it is amusing to picture a
waste, directly and indirectly, is one of biggest cycle rickshaw collecting waste in Adelaide, it's
challenges of the urban world. It's also a city's ridiculous to send a giant compactor into the
calling card. If a city is dirty, the local adminis- lanes of the old city in Dhaka, Bangladesh.
tration is written off as ineffective. If not, Clearly, modernization is not necessarily motor-
governance is presumed in the public eye to be ization. Delve into this idea and you'll find a few
effective. more strands of thought to build from.
This Third Global Report acknowledges All over the world, municipalities and coun-
escalating challenges without boundaries. Yet, it ties have shown how inclusion can achieve
is not prescriptive – that would go against its spectacular results. There are two kinds of inclu-
fundamental premise in highlighting the value of sion identified here: service users and service
local innovation and knowledge. What it seeks to providers. In Varna, Bulgaria, it took a consult-
do instead is to follow another one of the beliefs ant to inform the community that the
that it lays out: to build capacity through municipality was picking up half-empty bins.
networking. The contributors have dug out vast Changing the pick-up frequency came as a relief
amounts of knowledge and experience, and because it reduced costs in a none-too-wealthy
distilled it in this volume. Most readers might system. In 2007, Quezon City's waste collection
never travel to all of the 22 diverse cities upon services in the Philippines received a 100 per
which this Global Report is based. Yet, they will cent satisfied report card from its households, in
have access to real experiences of people work- large part because it was guided by their
ing on the ground. Indeed, this is an entirely new choices.
kind of networking: that of ideas. Perhaps read- When many developed world cities began
ing about what one city has been able to do will solid waste modernization processes, their infor-
light up an idea in another. mal sectors had ceased to be robust. As a result,
If you, as a city planner, are hoping that they had to 'reinvent' recycling, almost from
reading this report will be like popping a wisdom scratch. Today's developing world cities aspiring
pill, be warned. There is only one mantra here: for modernization aren't in the same situation.
use what you have and build on it with an army They are already serviced by numerous private
of partners. If anything, the report warns against players – individuals or micro-enterprises (often
imagining as ideal the systems, technologies and informal-sector players) – offering waste collec-
solutions of the developed world and trying to tion services, or picking waste from streets and
Solid Waste Management in the World's Cities
dumps, and trading in it. Their contribution is recognized by enlightened planners. In
is substantial. In Bamako, Mali, over 120 Rotterdam, The Netherlands, reuse enterprises
self-employed micro-enterprises collect approxi- are given diversion credits from the waste
mately 300,000 tonnes of waste annually, while management budget, while in Kunming, China,
in Lusaka, Zambia, informal service providers resource management is so important, it is an
reach out to 30 per cent of the city. In Bengaluru institutionally separate set of activities. The
and Delhi, India, micro-enterprises function simi- cities here suggest that recycling grows as the
larly, covering as much as 25 per cent of Delhi modernization process expands and begins to
across income groups, apart from picking and control disposal and its costs. Moreover, as both
recycling the valuable waste. The informal sector Quezon City and San Francisco demonstrate,
is clearly any city's key ally. These human strong policies and systems adaptation also give
resources can be best deployed in the public recycling an important push, coupled with
interest through appropriate legal and institu- change in user behaviour. Meanwhile, Dhaka,
tional spaces. But that doesn't imply that the Bangladesh, has met global standards to receive
informal recycling sector is a distinctly develop- carbon credits from composting.
ing world phenomenon. The research here shows Teasing out these trends requires data.
that it exists even in San Francisco, California, Often, such raw data was not easily available,
and Tompkins County, Ithaca, New York, and in forcing the question of institutionalization of
some people's opinion plays a positive role. information generation and storage. Without
Globally, the thinking is shifting from proper data collection and management, it is
merely removing waste before it becomes a difficult to be accountable, transparent and even;
health hazard to creatively minimizing its envi- to make effective strategies; and to budget for
ronmental impact. Waste reduction is desirable; them. The absence of all of this, in turn, creates
but, typically, it is not monitored anywhere. barriers for modern waste management systems.
Recycling, this Global Report emphasizes, has As the linkages between valorizing and
universal buy-in and a range of approaches are climate change become clear, proper waste
applied. Yet, it must be seen with new eyes. handling has become an important tool to miti-
While the commodity value of materials is taken gate greenhouse gases. This Third Global Report
for granted, the service aspect of recycling is expresses the hope that it can offer optimism that
relatively new everywhere. Besides, the greatest this is a battle to win, regardless of what kind of
value of recycling is, literally, as a sink. It city decides to join in this fight. In fact, the report
absorbs the various costs otherwise incurred expresses the hope that it will persuade everyone
were the waste treated using other options, such to enlist because our urban future will only be the
as landfills or incinerators. This opportunity cost maturing of our urban present.
new data. The book distinguishes itself in a
INTRODUCING number of ways:
• First and foremost, it is based on the frame-
This publication is UN-Habitat's Third Global work of integrated sustainable waste
Report on Water and Sanitation in the World's management (ISWM), especially the
Cities. It focuses on the state of solid waste concepts of sustainability and inclusive
management, which is an important challenge good practice that have broadened and
facing all of the world's cities. Previous volumes enriched the field.
focused on water supply and sanitation. The • The 20 real city examples provide up-to-
book has four main aims: date data and are used to inform questions
of waste policy, good and bad practice,
1 to showcase the good work that is being management, governance, financing and
done on solid waste by cities around the many other issues. The focus is on
world, large and small, rich and poor; processes rather than technologies, and the
2 to look at what drives change in solid goal is to encourage a different kind of
waste management, how things work in thinking.
cities and what seems to work better under • It uncovers the rich diversity of waste
which circumstances; management systems that are in place
3 to help decision-makers, practitioners and around the world. This book brings out
ordinary citizens understand how a solid common elements and develops a lens for
waste management system works; and 'viewing' a solid waste management
4 to inspire people everywhere, in good system, while at the same time encourag-
communication with their neighbours, ing every city to develop its own individual
constituents and leaders, to make their own solution, appropriate to its specific history,
decisions on the next steps in developing a economy, demography and culture, and to
solution appropriate to their own city's its human, environmental and financial
particular circumstances and needs. resources.
• A central tenet of the book is that there is
This book is designed both to fill a gap in the no one right answer that can be applied to
literature and knowledge base about solid waste all cities and all situations. In this, the
management in low-, middle- and high-income book challenges the notion that all a devel-
countries, and to provide a fresh perspective and oping country city needs to do is to copy a
Solid Waste Management in the World's Cities
system that works in a particular devel- make reasonable choices that serve their citizens
oped country city. and protect their environment at acceptable
• This is neither a 'how-to' book nor a 'let's financial cost.
fix it' book, although the discerning reader Looking beyond what is happening to what
A typical view of a
canal in Amsterdam, will find elements of both, but more of a could be improved, the book seeks to make the
The Netherlands, in 'how do they do it now and what do they principles and elements of sound practice in
the 1960s
need to do more or less of' kind of discus- waste management clear and accessible. The
© Stadsarchief Amsterdam,
used with permission sion. book explores both expensive 'best practice'
technologies, as used in high-income countries,
and moderate-cost creative alternatives that
improve the environment.
Most books on solid waste treat the solid
waste systems in developing and transitional
countries as imperfect or incomplete copies of an
ideal system that operates in developed countries
such as Canada, Denmark or Japan. Many, if not
most, waste interventions seek to perfect or
improve the copying process and spread the ideal.
What is frequently overlooked is that the
higher-income countries in Europe and North
America have been busy with solid waste for the
last 40 years or so. The systems and technolo-
gies in use there were not developed overnight,
and they fit the climates, social conditions and
economies of Northern European society. What is
not always clear to the visitor to Denmark or
Germany is that even these 'clean giants' did not
move from open dumping to current best practice
in one step. They and their citizens debated and
struggled and agreed to disagree. Their engi-
neers took risks, made innovations and made
their share of mistakes. Some things that were
designed 20 years ago – such as the Dutch
Waste thrown into This book's ambition is to look at solid waste and producer-responsibility agreement for packaging
a watercourse
alongside a the world's cities in a fresh new way; to observe – have never worked, while other innovations
neighbourhood in what works and what does not; and to let this such as dual collection of organic waste and
Nairobi, Kenya, 2008
inform the policy process and contribute to residuals have made contributions to both econ-
© UN-Habitat
rethinking the whole waste management omy and environment.
concept. The authors see an urgent need for this This book responds to a growing global
in transitional, low- and middle-income countries; consensus that cities in low-income, middle-income
but it may well be that looking from another and transitional countries need to take charge of
viewpoint gives new insights to developed coun- the modernization process and to develop their
tries as well. The goal is to provide an honest own models for waste management that are more
look at how cities – large and small, complex and than simply 'imperfect copies'. Citizens of the
simple, coastal and inland, in rich, poor and tran- world need to have solid waste and recycling
sitional countries – do and do not succeed to systems that serve their needs and match their
Introduction and key concepts
wishes and what they can and want to afford.
This calls for a larger variety of models and
approaches tailored to fit specific local conditions.
A good baseline analysis and a transparent
stakeholder process will reveal one or more logi-
cal 'next steps' that each city can take to
improve what they have and move the whole
system towards effective, affordable perform-
ance. Because modern waste management is
about much more than a 'technical fix', such next
steps can relate to making the institutional
framework stronger, sending waste system
employees to training, shifting the recycling
strategy to be easier for citizens, or phasing out
About the authors Boys transferring
energy-intensive approaches to collection. waste from
Technologies are visible evidence of humanity's This book has been a joint effort of UN-Habitat collection point to
truck in Bengaluru,
best intentions to transform solid waste into a and a group of international solid waste and India
safe, inert substance. They carry the system, but recycling specialists: © WASTE, Jeroen IJgosse
they are not the system. And if they work at all,
they do so because of the far less visible institu- • Around 35 people from 15 countries have
tional, governance, policy and participative worked actively on the book.
frameworks that are highly varied and complex, • The team has worked on solid waste
and directly related to local conditions. management in six continents and in many
The book combines experience and case different kinds of cities, towns, villages,
studies with analysis of some 20 city profiles, counties, provinces, countries and non-
each of which has been created for the book itself. national zones.
The method combines data collection, analysis, • Most of the team are experienced solid
modelling, reflection and comparison. Cities have waste professionals ('garbologists'), but
been asked unusual questions, which are designed come from a variety of backgrounds and
to stimulate city officials and the readers of this disciplines, including an industrial
book to look differently at management of waste designer; a journalist; several architects;
in cities, and to dare to think outside the box – or environmental specialists; university
in this case outside the waste bin or trash barrel. professors; diplomats; students; politicians;
A range of specialists on the writing team are scientists; environmental, human rights
using new and existing information about waste and sustainability activists; sociologists;
and recycling in cities to look at, analyse and engineers; planners; economists; artists;
reflect upon solid waste in cities worldwide. and teachers.
If we take a step back and look with a • The collective experience of the team has
fresh perspective at urban waste management in led them to be critical of business as usual
the 21st century, we might dare to ask the ques- in solid waste, management of organic
tion: how much progress have we really made, waste and recycling because they know
even in the best European solid waste systems, from first-hand experience what doesn't
when we still generate ever-increasing amounts work well – or at all – when transferred
of waste, and still rely on burying our discarded from a high-income to a middle- or low-
products under the ground as a legitimate income country.
'method' of waste management?
Solid Waste Management in the World's Cities
About the organization of this book Chapter 6 closes the book with some reflec-
tions about ISWM, structured around emerging
The book is written around three key physical
issues, followed by a glossary and references.
elements of an integrated sustainable (solid)
waste management (ISWM) system, and three
ISWM governance approaches that are used to
manage it. Even before the book begins there is a THE SCALE OF THE
decision-makers' guide (pages xix–xxviii), a short SOLID WASTE PROBLEM
introduction for decision-makers to read and
What is municipal solid waste (MSW)?
decide whether they have time to read the rest.
Chapter 1 is an executive summary, prepared by Definitions of municipal solid waste (MSW) vary
Bharati Chaturvedi of Chintan-Environmental in between countries, so it is important to establish
Delhi. at the outset just what is being discussed in this
Chapter 2, the current chapter, begins with book. A working definition is 'wastes generated
a short introduction explaining what this book is by households, and wastes of a similar nature
designed to do, and why and how it has been generated by commercial and industrial prem-
written. The reader can skip this section – or ises, by institutions such as schools, hospitals,
come back to it later; but its purpose is to intro- care homes and prisons, and from public spaces
duce the book's lightly unconventional way of such as streets, markets, slaughter houses,
looking at waste management. The second part public toilets, bus stops, parks, and gardens'.
of Chapter 2 explores the nature of the solid This working definition includes most commer-
waste problem and presents key concepts used cial and business wastes as municipal solid
throughout the book. waste, with the exception of industrial process
Chapter 3 introduces the cities, giving the and other hazardous wastes. Different countries
reader a flavour for location, size, material and define municipal solid waste rather differently –
waste intensity of the society, economic situa- for example, depending on which sector does the
tion, climate, and a range of other factors. collecting – so it is important to ask in each city
Chapter 3 also includes an appendix of specific what the definition is and not assume that they
two-page summaries of each city (City Inserts are all the same.1 Some experts suggest that all
section, pages 41–85), focusing the reader on industrial and construction and demolition
unique features, but also enabling comparison (C&D) wastes should be included in the definition
through presenting a common set of seven indica- of municipal solid waste.2
tors drawn from information provided by each Still, the picture is not always so clear and
city. some waste generators produce both municipal
Chapters 4 and 5 present the main new and non-municipal wastes:
information that the book hopes to contribute to
the global solid waste and recycling discussion. • Manufacturing industries generate munici-
These two chapters present the information from pal solid waste from offices and canteens,
the reference cities, focusing the discussion of and industrial wastes from manufacturing
successes and problems on real things happening processes. Some industrial wastes are
in real places. Chapter 4 looks at the 'first trian- hazardous and this part of the waste
gle' of the ISWM physical systems: collection, stream requires special management, sepa-
disposal and resource management. Chapter 5 rate from other wastes.
focuses on the 'second supporting triangle' of • Small workshops in urban areas generate
governance aspects in ISWM: inclusivity, finan- both municipal and process wastes, some of
cial sustainability, and sound institutions and which may be hazardous.
proactive policies.
Introduction and key concepts
• Hospitals and healthcare establishments/
services generate municipal solid waste
fractions that include food waste, newspa-
pers and packaging, alongside specialized
healthcare hazardous wastes that are often
mixed with body fluids, chemicals and
sharp objects.
• Construction sites generate some municipal
solid waste, including packaging and food
and office wastes, together with C&D
wastes containing materials such as
concrete, bricks, wood, windows and roof- hazardous, industrial and healthcare wastes. Construction waste,
tree trunks and
ing materials. During development and modernization of green trimmings
• Construction and demolition wastes from an ISWM system, there is both a tendency and a mixed with domestic
waste requiring
household repairs and refurbishment, partic- need to refine definitions, analyse and classify special equipment
ularly 'do-it-yourself' wastes, are most likely types of generators and types of wastes, and for cleaning up in
Managua, Nicaragua
to enter the municipal solid waste stream. gradually increase the precision with which sepa-
© UN-Habitat
rate streams are directed to appropriate and Jeroen IJgosse
In most cities, municipal solid waste includes specific management subsystems. Good gover-
'household hazardous wastes' (HNWs; e.g. pesti- nance for solid waste management advances this
cides, paints and coatings, batteries, light bulbs process, which is also influenced by questions of
and medicines). Similar hazardous wastes may cost and affordability.
come from small businesses. Cities in developed While this book acknowledges the impor-
countries have systems that are designed to collect tance of good management of specific hazardous,
and handle these separately, or to prevent their industrial and healthcare wastes, it addresses
generation and reduce their toxicity; but there are them only by specifically excluding them from its
few cities in which this works completely and most main areas of focus. These streams are best
MSW streams include some of these hazardous managed when they are clearly and effectively
components when they reach disposal. Parallel segregated from municipal solid waste in manage-
collection systems sometimes exist for end-of-life ment, policy and financing. Substantial guidance
vehicles and for waste electrical and electronic on managing hazardous wastes is available, for
Bulky household
equipment (WEEE), some parts of which may example, from the Basel Convention3 and the waste set out for
collection in
again be classified as hazardous waste. United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)4,
There are also largely non-municipal waste and on managing healthcare hazardous wastes Suriname
streams, such as agricultural wastes and mining from the World Health Organization (WHO)5. © Jeroen IJgosse
Healthcare waste has become a serious health • increased risk of infections and sharp
hazard in many countries. Careless and indiscrim- injuries to hospital staff, municipal waste
inate disposal of this waste by healthcare workers and waste-pickers;
institutions can contribute to the spread of seri- • organic pollution.
ous diseases such as hepatitis and AIDS (HIV)
among those who handle it and also among the Most hospitals do not have any treatment facility
general public for infectious waste. The laboratory waste
Infectious and non-infectious wastes are materials and liquid wastes are disposed of
dumped together within the hospital premises, directly into the municipal sewer without proper
resulting in a mixing of the two, rendering these disinfection of pathogens and, ultimately, reach
both hazardous. Collection by the municipality nearby water streams.
and disposing these at the dumping sites in the Unsafe healthcare settings can contribute
city makes it freely accessible to rag-pickers who significantly to some diseases. Legionellosis is a
become exposed to serious health hazards due to risk associated with healthcare facilities. On
injuries from sharp needles and other types of average, nearly 10 per cent of infections are
material. acquired in hospital.
Healthcare waste has infectious and The quantity of healthcare waste varies in
hazardous characteristics. It can result in: accordance with income levels (see Table K2.1).
It is estimated that in low-income countries
• development of resistant strains of micro- about 5 to 10 per cent of healthcare waste
Table K2.1 organisms; consists of hazardous/infectious waste (Indian
Healthcare waste • trade in waste materials and disposed of or Society of Hospital Waste Management). The
generation by
income level expired drugs that are recovered and World Health Organization (WHO)1 has made a
© Halbanch (1994); repacked to be sold as new; similar estimate for all countries that, generally,
Commission of the • spread of disease through contact with only 7 per cent of healthcare waste is infectious
European Union (1995);
Durand (1995) people or animals who pick or eat waste; and requires red-bag handling.
Sharp waste, although produced in small
National income level Type of waste Annual waste generation
(kg per capita) quantities, is highly infectious. Contaminated
High-income countries All healthcare waste 1.1kg–12.0kg
needles and syringes represent a particular
Hazardous healthcare waste 0.4kg–5.5kg
Middle-income countries All healthcare waste 0.8kg–6.0kg threat because they are sometimes scavenged
Hazardous healthcare waste 0.3kg–0.4kg
from waste areas and dumpsites and then reused.
Low-income counties All healthcare waste 0.5kg–3.0kg
Poorly managed, they expose healthcare work-
Introduction and key concepts
ers, waste handlers and the community to infec-
tions. The WHO estimates that, in 2000,
injections with contaminated syringes caused 21
million hepatitis B virus (HBV) infections (32 per
cent of all new infections); 2 million hepatitis C
virus (HCV) infections (40 per cent of all new
infections); and 260,000 HIV infections (5 per
cent of all new infections).
Untertaking a waste
characterization When there is information, it suggests that
(composition) study while composition of municipal solid waste varies
in Bengaluru, India
widely, both within and between countries, and
© WASTE, Jeroen IJgosse
between different seasons of the year, there are
common patterns. Figure 2.1 shows how different
the waste stream is in the reference cities, located
as they are in high-, middle- and low-income coun-
tries. The fact that they classify their waste
differently makes the comparison a challenge.
City Paper Glass Metal Plastic Organic Other Household Residue Total
(%) (%) (%) (%) (%) (%) hazardous waste (%) (%)
Adelaide, Australia 7 5 5 5 26 52 0 0 100
Bamako, Mali 4 1 4 2 21 52 0 0 83
Belo Horizonte, Brazil 10 3 2 11 66 4 0 5 100
Bengaluru, India 8 2 0 7 72 9 1 0 100
Table 2.2
Canete, Peru 6 2 2 9 70 11 0 0 100
Waste composition Curepipe, Republic of Mauritius 23 2 4 16 48 7 0 0 100
in the reference Delhi, India 7 1 0 10 81 0 0 0 100
cities (percentage). Dhaka, Bangladesh 9 0 0 4 74 13 0 0 99
This table says a lot Ghorahi, Nepal 6 2 0 5 79 7 0 0 99
about globalization of Kunming, China 4 2 1 7 58 26 0 0 98
products and packages, Lusaka, Zambia 3 2 1 7 39 48 0 0 100
and also indicates what Managua, Nicaragua 9 1 1 8 74 1 0 5 100
is not really globalized. Moshi, Tanzania 9 3 2 9 65 5 0 7 100
For example, the large Nairobi, Kenya 6 2 1 12 65 15 0 0 100
percentages of sand and Quezon City, Philippines 13 4 4 16 50 12 0 0 100
grit in Bamako, and Rotterdam, Netherlands 27 8 3 17 26 19 0 0 100
'other' in Lusaka, make San Francisco, USA 24 3 4 11 34 21 3 0 100
these cities exceptions
Sousse, Tunisia 9 3 2 9 65 11 0 1 100
to the generally high
Tompkins County, USA 36 6 8 11 29 11 0 0 100
percentage of organics.
Varna, Bulgaria 13 15 10 15 24 23 0 1 100
The differences in the
Average 12 3 3 10 53 17 0 1
way composition is
Median 9 2 2 9 61 12 0 0
analysed are also quite
Introduction and key concepts
The immediate impression from looking at
Figure 2.1 is that organic waste is a very large
part of all cities' waste streams. Perhaps the
most neglected part of the modernization project,
closing nutrient cycles by capturing organic
waste, is a topic that has profound impacts upon
both the city and upon global cycling of carbon
and nitrogen.
• The amount of waste generated per person at the current average OECD per capita rate, © UN-Habitat
is rising, together with increases in wealth with no allowance for growth in that rate, the
(as shown by GDP). total world generation would become 5.9 billion
• The amount of waste from businesses is tonnes – nearly three times the current estimate.
increasing. This could equate to around 59 billion cubic
• The substances in waste are increasing in metres of MSW each year, enough to cover a
complexity and variety. country the size of Costa Rica or Ireland to a
depth of one metre.
Waste quantities have been growing steadily in Calls for waste reduction are often mistak-
high-income countries over the last few decades, enly confused with a plea to slow economic
often at a rate of 3 per cent per year. Cities growth. Rather, strategies are needed to decou-
in low- and middle-income countries are experi- ple waste growth from economic growth, as, for
encing even higher growth rates due to a example, in The Netherlands.9 However, even in
combination of the factors listed above. Although countries with active waste prevention initia-
there are some indications that growth may now tives, waste quantities have generally continued Table 2.3
be slowing down in some developed countries, in to grow and only recently have begun to level off Estimates of current
most of the world substantial growth rates are in some countries.10 Developing country cities world MSW
generation and
likely to continue for some time to come. are still experiencing rapid population growth, so projections of what
Estimating global waste generation figures one element of an integrated solid waste it might become
is difficult given the unreliability of the data, management solution has to be how to tackle Source: developed from
public sources by David C.
particularly for low- and middle-income coun- exponential growth in waste quantities. Wilson
to the waste collection providers and operators: Uncollected solid waste blocking drains caused a major flood, leading to an outbreak of a
they also have to change the way in which they plague-like disease in Surat, India, in 1994. The disease caused panic countrywide, and while
the citizens blamed the municipality, the public authorities, in turn, blamed the citizens for
think and behave. This has led, in some
their lack of civic sense.
instances, to a reduction in collection frequency Over 1000 plague-suspected patients were reported, with the final death toll of 56
for the residual waste. people. The city incurred a daily loss of 516 million Indian rupees during the plague period
and a total loss amounting to 12 billion rupees. This was a high price to pay for negligence
in the area of solid waste management.
The solid waste challenge in developing and
Alarmed at the situation, the Surat Municipal Corporation undertook a stringent
transitional country cities
programme of cleaning the city. Within a year after the plague, the level of (daily) solid
Experience in low- and middle-income countries waste collection increased from 30 to 93 per cent, and 95 per cent of streets are cleaned
daily. Market areas, major roads and litter-prone spots are cleaned twice a day.
can also be related to the same drivers. The
Surat is now identified as one of the cleanest cities in the region.
plague epidemic in Surat is one example of a
Solid Waste Management in the World's Cities
A basic answer is public health. UN-Habitat
data shows significant increases in the incidence MOVING TOWARDS
of sickness among children living in households SUSTAINABLE
where garbage is dumped or burned in the yard.
Typical examples include twice as high diarrhoea
rates and six times higher prevalence of acute Solid waste and the Millennium
respiratory infections, compared to areas in the
Development Goals (MDGs)
same cities where waste is collected regularly.20 The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) were
Therefore, providing comprehensive waste collec- ratified by 189 heads of state at the United
tion is an equity issue. Nations Millennium Summit in September 2000,
Uncollected solid waste clogs drains and with the overall objective of halving world
causes flooding and subsequent spread of water- poverty by 2015. Improving solid waste manage-
borne diseases. Infectious diseases such as ment systems will contribute to achieving many
cholera or the plague do not respect wealth – not of them, in spite of the fact that solid waste is
collecting waste in the slums may also cause never explicitly mentioned in the MDGs.
sickness in the richer parts of the city. In one There are several places where the MDGs
small city in Egypt, 89 per cent of villagers living and the modernization of waste management
downwind of the burning dumpsite were suffering come together, as is shown in more detail in
from respiratory disease.21 Contaminated liquids, Table 2.4:
or leachate, leaking from dumpsites may also
pollute a city's drinking water supplies. • MDGs 1 and 7, on livelihoods and poverty,
The modernization challenge facing a low- on the one hand, and on environment, on
and middle-income country city includes how to the other, point to the urgency of inclusive
extend collection coverage to unserved parts of policies in waste management so that the
Cleaning up the city where there is less infrastructure and role of the informal waste sector in clean-
campaigns in
the ability to pay is lower. This is something that ing up cities and recovering resources is
Quezon City,
Philippines, few cities in Europe or North America have to recognized, while working conditions and
contributing to
think about, and it is another major source of livelihoods are improved. Recent work
improving health
conditions for the increasing costs. But without providing compre- suggests that the informal sector both
children of the
hensive collection, these cities are not fulfilling contributes to a city's recycling rates
Barrangays (local
communities) their responsibility to protect public health – not and substantially reduces its costs for
© Quezon City just for the poor, but for all their citizens. managing solid waste.22
• Improving the coverage of waste collection
services contributes to the health-related
MDGs 4, 5 and 6, and will reduce both child
diseases and mortality.
• MDG 8, on global partnerships, is a blue-
print for cities to work with private formal
and informal actors, on the one hand, and
to join with communities in participatory
planning and problem solving, on the other.
Partnerships can improve governance,
bring about financial sustainability and
support proactive policy formulation.
Introduction and key concepts
Modernization of solid waste management in the gies and institutions, which function flexibly
West started when recycling rates had declined under a clear policy umbrella.
to a very low level, and has included a drive to Such systems mimic an ecosystem, which is
rebuild recycling through the municipal waste robust and resilient when there is a mix of unique
system. Most developing and transitional coun- niches and competition for resources. If one
try cities still retain their informal recycling species falls out, others move in to take its place.
systems, which provide a source of livelihood to In low- and middle-income countries, there is
vast numbers of the urban poor. Building on this often a variety of formal and informal, public and
existing system makes good sense. private systems already operating, so the basis
for a stable mixed system is already in place.
The integrated sustainable waste What most low- and middle-income cities miss is
management (ISWM) framework organization – specifically, a clear and function-
When the current modernization process started ing institutional framework, a sustainable
in developed countries during the 1970s, solid financial system, and a clear process for pushing
waste management was seen largely as a techni- the modernization agenda and improving the
cal problem with engineering solutions. That system's performance. As long as there is no
changed during the 1980s and 1990s when it umbrella framework, the mixture remains a clus-
became clear that municipalities could not ter of separate parts that do not function well
successfully collect and remove waste without together – or at all.
active cooperation from the service users. Cities
also learned that technologies depend on institu- Sustainability in solid waste management
is possible
tional, governance and policy frameworks, which
are highly varied and complex, and directly The severity of the local solid waste management
related to local conditions. problem may lead a city mayor to grab at what-
There is now broad international consensus ever is offered that sounds like a solution,
for what has come to be known as ISWM: inte- particularly if it appears to solve an urgent prob-
grated sustainable (solid) waste management. As lem in a politically comfortable way. But if a
is shown in Figure 2.2, ISWM identifies three solution seems 'too good to be true', it's probably
important dimensions that all need to be not true.
addressed when developing or changing a solid There are few global controls on the claims
waste management system – namely, the stake- made by individuals or companies seeking to do Trucks going via the
holders, the elements and the sustainability business with cities. Marketing representatives weighbridge to the
landfill, Nicaragua
aspects. travel the world over and offer mayors and city
© UN-Habitat
ISWM is designed to improve the perform- councillors the one 'right answer', the magic Jeroen IJgosse
We recyclers and other recycling workers in the • Recognize the critical and productive role
informal economy are environmental entrepre- that the recyclers contribute to the mitiga-
neurs performing with high efficiency and have tion of climate change, and invest resources
generated a climatic debt for our history and in programmes for recovery at source that
current contribution to the reduction of green- ensure a dignified way of life for all work-
house gases and the reduction in costs for waste ers and traders from the recycling industry.
management. • Study and remove the support for all proj-
Material recovery and recycling are for us ects that divert recyclable waste to
the best options for managing urban waste. incineration or landfilling.
Therefore, we don't consider the extraction of • Establish mitigation mechanisms that are
landfill gases to produce energy, or incineration directly accessible by recyclers and which
projects or the production of derivated fuels to be are significant in terms of financial and
recycling or recuperation operations. technical support.
The industrialized countries must reduce • Consult the recyclers first in relation to
their consumption of natural resources, limit the energy from waste generation.
generation of waste, increase recycling and avoid • Support projects and technologies that
all exports of waste and technologies contribut- divert organic waste from landfills by
ing to climate change. We call upon the United means of composting and methane produc-
Nations Framework Convention on Climate tion, and which should be adopted as
Change (UNFCCC) and our local governments to: options due to the reduction of methane.
Bonn, Germany
8 June 2009
Introduction and key concepts
Box 2.3 Integrated sustainable waste management (ISWM)
Integrated sustainable waste management (ISWM), as shown in Other key stakeholders include the waste generators: the users of
Figure 2.2, is a framework that was first developed during the mid the waste management service provided by the city, including
1980s by WASTE, a Dutch non-governmental organization (NGO), households, offices and businesses, hotels and restaurants, institu-
and WASTE's South partner organizations, and further developed tions such as hospitals and schools, and government facilities such
by the Collaborative Working Group on Solid Waste Management as airports or the post office.
in Low- and Middle-Income Countries (CWG) in the mid 1990s. Elements. These are the technical components of a waste
Since then it has become the 'norm'.23 management system. Part of the purpose of using the ISWM
ISWM is a systems approach that recognizes three impor- framework is to show that these technical components are part of
tant dimensions, which all need to be addressed when developing the overall picture, not all of it. In Figure 2.2, the boxes in the top
or changing a solid waste management system. The dimensions, row all relate to removal and safe disposal, and the bottom row of
shown in Figure 2.2, correspond to three key questions: boxes relate to 'valorization' of commodities. Solid waste manage-
ment consists of a variety of activities, including reduction, reuse,
1 The stakeholders – the people or organizations with a recycling and composting, operated by a variety of stakeholders at
'stake' or interest in solid waste management: who needs various scales.
to be involved? Aspects. For a waste management system to be sustainable,
2 The elements – the technical components of a waste it needs to consider all of the operational, financial, social, institu-
management system: what needs to be done? tional, political, legal and environmental aspects. These form the
3 The aspects which need to be considered as part of a third dimension in Figure 2.2, in the lower box. The aspects
sustainable solution: how to achieve the desired results? provide a series of analytical 'lenses', which can be used, for exam-
ple, for assessing the situation, determining feasibility, identifying
Stakeholders. The main 'recognized' stakeholders include the local priorities or setting adequacy criteria.
authority (mayor, city council, solid waste department), the 'Integrated' in ISWM refers to the linkages and
national environment and local government ministries, and one or interdependency between the various activities (elements), stake-
two private companies working under contract to the municipal- holders and 'points of view' (sustainability aspects). Moreover, it
ity. Often unrecognized stakeholders include (female) street suggests that technical, but also legal, institutional and economic
sweepers, (male) workers on collection trucks, dumpsite 'waste- linkages are necessary to enable the overall system to function.
pickers', some of whom may actually live on or at the edge of the
dumpsite, and family-based businesses that live from recycling.
Figure 2.2
The integrated
waste management
(ISWM) framework
Source: WASTE (advisers
on urban environment and
development), Gouda, the
Solid Waste Management in the World's Cities
This is the crucial difference between out of sight of the place of generation, without
waste management and other utilities and public necessarily attending to the issue of public
services. Most people don't care where their health protection.
waste goes, as long as it is not next to their Waste management isn't as technically
house. They may be willing to pay for removal of complex as energy or housing, but it does have
their waste from the immediate vicinity of their its own set of issues and solutions, and these
house, but often not for its subsequent treatment deserve attention. This book is about that atten-
and disposal. And when they are not willing to tion, and it supports the real work of supporting
pay, someone else generally suffers. Whereas an decision-makers and practitioners in the daily
individual misses their post, the individual opting work of figuring out what is right for each city's
out of a waste management service doesn't particular climate, economy and citizens.
notice much 'personal' impact. It is much easier, The book's authors trust that by identifying
as well as much more harmful, to burn or dump good and innovative practices from cities at all
your own waste than it is to generate your own stages of developing their waste management
electricity, or, indeed, to deliver your own letter systems, this book will contribute to helping
to your family in a distant village. cities find innovative and workable solutions that
Another important difference between are appropriate to their own particular circum-
waste and utility services such as water or elec- stances.
tricity is that the impact of waste management is It is also part of the ambition of this book
not as direct; you will not receive a collection to encourage decision-makers to think beyond
service that collects your waste as soon as you the short term. An effective collection system
generate it. You will have to manage it yourself serving the whole city and a safe and environ-
for some time, before giving it to the collection mentally sound disposal site are essential
service that passes by once or twice a week. components of an ISWM system. But so are effec-
Availability of communal containers and/or infor- tive systems to address the 3Rs: reduce, reuse,
mal collectors that provide 'private' services can recycle (i.e. to reduce the quantities of waste
sometimes create the notion that a waste collec- generated, and to build on the existing, largely
tion service is always available to take the waste informal sector systems for reuse and recycling).
1 OECD Environmental www.census.gov/ipc/ww Sheet 13. 1999.
Data Compendium w/idb/worldpop.php. 15 We use the term 'devel- 18 World Bank (undated).
2006–2008, 9 Scheinberg and IJgosse, oped' interchangeably 19 Sanjay Gupta, own expe-
www.oecd.org/dataoecd 2004. with 'higher i ncome' rience.
/22/58/41878186.pdf. 10 For example, average because it is generally 20 UN-Habitat, 2009, p129
2 Hoornweg and Thomas, MSW growth rates in used to refer to higher- 21 SWM case study for
1999. England averaged ⫺0.4 income countries. But Sohag City, as part of the
3 Basel Convention, per cent per annum for we use it with some UK Department for
www.basel.int/. the five years to March regret, as some so-called International
4 Wilson et al, 2003. 2008 (Defra, 2008). 'less developed coun- Development (DFID)-
5 Prüss et al, 1999. 11 Wilson, 2007. tries' are more funded Support for
6 Coffey, 2009. 12 Strasser, 1999. developed in some Environmental
7 Key Note Publications 13 'Any rags, any bones', dimensions than the so- Assessment and
Ltd, 2007. Strasser, 1999, Chapter called 'developed Management (SEAM)
8 US Census Bureau, 2, pp69–109. countries'. project in Egypt, 1999.
Population Division, 14 More on climate change 16 Scheinberg, 2003. 22 GTZ/CWG, 2007.
International Data Base, in Chapter 5, and in Key 17 Hoornweg and Thomas, 23 Anschütz et al (2004).
City Size of city Population Growth rate Country GDP Human Development
(km2) (US$ millions) Index (HDI)
Adelaide, Australia 842 1,089,728 3.3% 821,000 0.97
Bamako, Mali 267 1,809,106 4.5% 6900 0.37
Belo Horizonte, Brazil 331 2,452,617 1.2% 1,313,400 0.81
Bengaluru, India 800 7,800,000 2.8% 3,096,900 0.61
Canete, Peru 512 48,892 2.7% 107,300 0.81
Curepipe, Republic of Mauritius 24 83,750 0.8% 6800 0.80
Delhi, India 1,483 13,850,507 1.5% 3,096,900 0.61
Dhaka, Bangladesh 365 7,000,000 1.7% 68,400 0.54
Table 3.1 Ghorahi, Nepal 74 59,156 4.0% 10,300 0.55
The reference cities Kunming, China 2,200 3,500,000 NR 3,205,500 0.77
Lusaka, Zambia 375 1,500,000 3.7% 11,400 0.48
This table shows the
Managua, Nicaragua 289 1,002,882 1.7% 5700 0.70
range of cities profiled
Moshi, Tanzania 58 183,520 2.8% 16,200 0.53
for this Report. The
smallest in area is Nairobi, Kenya 696 4,000,000 4.5% 24,200 0.54
Curepipe, more of a Quezon City, Philippines 161 2,861,091 2.9% 144,100 0.75
town than a city; the Rotterdam, Netherlands 206 582,949 –0.2% 765,800 0.96
largest in area are cities San Francisco, USA 122 835,364 1.0% 13,751,400 0.96
or regions: Kunming, Sousse, Tunesia 45 173,047 3.3% 35,000 0.77
Tompkins, Adelaide. Tompkins County, USA 1,272 101,136 0.1% 13,751,400 0.96
Varna, Bulgaria 80 313,983 –0.1% 39,500 0.84
Note: NR = not reported.
Average 510 2,462,386 2.2% 2,013,905 0.72
Source: original data for this Median 310 1,046,305 2.7% 87,850 0.76
report supplemented by
information from UNDP
Profiling the reference cities
How is it possible to research and understand 20
cities in a short period of time? Some basic
instruments have been derived from the inte-
grated sustainable waste management (ISWM)
framework, with a focus on three system
elements and three governance aspects, and
A PFD is also the best way to understand tionships between stakeholders, and they help
the amount of parallelism and mixing in the with understanding financial and governance
system, which is an indicator of state and type of issues about the system as well. In addition to
modernization.1 'Parallelism' here is used to diagramming, some cities went so far as to
mean that there are competing options or paths research and calculate the materials balances for
for materials to move along the same place in the all of the process steps, showing how many
chain, so that in Lusaka formal collectors tonnes go in, get transformed and go out. This
compete with informal collection service kind of modelling clarifies the situation still
providers to collect waste from households. In further and improves the quality of the informa-
Varna, in contrast, there are franchises for differ- tion significantly.
ent sub-municipalities for waste collection; but Process flow diagramming introduces facts
there is only one main route that mixed waste that can be easily visually communicated to
follows when it leaves the household. policy-makers. The work done on Lusaka for the
For organic waste and paper, there are GTZ/CWG (2007) informal study showed the
alternative paths: many people use kitchen advantages of using a PFD: through diagram-
waste to feed animals at their village houses, and ming it became clear that more than 30 per cent
they burn paper in small woodstoves in the of Lusaka's waste was collected by informal
winter. This would be called mixing rather than service providers, who were considered as un-
parallelism. registered or illegal. At first, this activity was
Process flow diagrams are methodologi- 'written off' as a loss or leak; but the fact that
cally useful for additional reasons. By looking at the PFD showed it so clearly stimulated a discus-
the paths of materials, it is possible to know a sion about the value of this activity, which could
great deal about transactions and relations then be framed as informal but organized. This,
between different stakeholders, as well as under- in turn, influenced the city's attitude towards –
standing how formal and informal systems relate and recognition of – this unusually large informal
to each other. PFDs tell rather a lot about rela- service sector.2
Solid Waste Management in the World's Cities
Figure 3.2
Process flow
diagram for Lusaka,
Zambia, from the
Source: Riverine Associates
and the City of Lusaka
Solid Waste Department;
the Process Flow was
originally prepared for
GTZ/CWG, 2007 (draft)
In Lusaka, Zambia,
the process flow
diagram identified
both formal and
informal actors in
the collection
service provision.
The photo shows
the formal,
collection service
© LCC-WMU Photo
Library, Jan G. Tasink
Profiling the reference cities
Figure 3.3
Process flow
diagram for Delhi,
Source: Chintan-
Environmental, Delhi, India
Process flow diagramming, when combined stances. This is supported by the fact that so
with materials balances, also fundamentally many of the cities, alongside their trucks and
changes the international discourse on informal tractors, still have a considerable portion of their
recycling. First, it provides indications of the waste, recyclables and/or organic materials
size, richness and impact of informal recycling moved with animal or human muscle power.
activities. Second, it illustrates quite clearly the The process flow for Delhi, India, suggests
many types and intensities of interrelationship quite clearly that the only waste that is being
between households, providers, and formal and collected is moving through the informal sector.
informal economic actors. Cañete is small, but its Everything else is either thrown onto streets,
process flow diagram shows that a substantial where it is captured by sweepers, is taken to
amount of material leaves the formal disposal containers or is discharged in the park. In this
facility via informal channels, and then ends up example, a world-class city depends upon its
in the formal recycling supply chain. In Delhi waste-pickers for keeping a basic level of cleanli-
there is, in effect, no formal primary collection ness.
system serving households: the informal system In the process flow diagram for Quezon
functions as the connection between households City, the Philippines, the materials recovery
and the dhalaos. In the large majority of the facilities (MRFs) in the Baranguays, play a key
cities, there is, in effect, a formal–informal role in processing materials for valorization. The
continuum, with different categories of actors process flow shows that key role quite clearly, as
who interact, overlap and may themselves many streams of materials are shown to come
change category in response to changing circum- together there.
Solid Waste Management in the World's Cities
Former rag-picker
engaged in door to
door primary
waste collection in
Delhi, India, en
route to a
collection point.
The importance of
such informal
sector collectors,
now officially
recognized by the
City, was
through the
process flow
© Sanjay K. Gupta
Information and indicators one city 'scores', but how things cluster and
what this tells about the city. These indicators
A short set of indicators was, secondly, prepared
are presented in the insert, which includes two
based on the six ''themes' of ' good practice in
pages per city of key information and the short
ISWM components that form the focus of this
indicator set.
report, as follows.
One of these new indicators was inspired by
Three drivers and physical elements:
the experience of Delhi/New Delhi, where the
profiler and Chintan-Environmental, the host
1 Public health/collection.
NGO, were astounded to find out how challenging
2 Environment/disposal.
it was for the city officials to find or provide
3 Resource management.
information. This led to the creation of a rela-
tively new governance indicator: the age of the
Three ISWM governance aspects, which include:
most recent reports that are available.
In the comparative tables distributed
1 Inclusivity.
throughout this Global Report, as many cities as
2 Financial sustainability.
possible will be included in the comparison based
3 Sound institutions and proactive policies.
on the availability of information per city. In
cases where information is not reported, the
These indicators are useful for analysing how
abbreviation NR will be marked, and in cases
processes work within a city and comparing
where information is not available, the abbrevia-
across cities. The point is not so much to see how
tion NA is used.
Profiling the reference cities
The role of city profilers
Third, the individuals who described the cities for
the book (the 'city profilers') are mentioned;
these city profilers collected examples, stories,
photos, newspaper articles and other qualitative
information. Together with the profilers, the co-
authors and editors of the book used their
collective experience to really understand the
'story' of solid waste in each city, how the driv-
ers have influenced solid waste, and how to
understand both successes and problems. Some
examples of 'stories' include the following:
Municipal staff
• Cities with good collection at the sub- nities and disappointing recycling perform-
identifying the
municipal level, such as Bamako or Nairobi ance. different roles in
solid waste
or Managua, may have distant, limited or management
no controlled disposal simply because there Other ways of understanding the cities include within the
is no one at the city council level who comparative tables, photos, diagrams and
chart in Managua,
'owns' the problem or is committed to stories; these have come from the city profilers; Nicaragua
proactively seeking a solution. from their sources (both in terms of reports and © UN-Habitat
Jeroen IJgosse
• Or consider the paradox of Curepipe, in terms of talking to people) in the cities; and
Adelaide and Rotterdam: too much moder- from the collective professional memory of all the
ately priced disposal reduces incentives for writers and teams working on the Global
both users and providers to work on source Report.3 The sum of all these parts is designed to
separation and recovery of recyclables and give a three-dimensional insight into the cities
organic waste – even when there is a policy that builds understanding about ISWM in
commitment. The result is missed opportu- specific places, and also in its totality.
City Profiler
involved in
engaging and
waste-pickers in
the formal
primary waste
collection system
in Buldana, India
© Sanjay K. Gupta
Solid Waste Management in the World's Cities
• secret – considered to be secret or propri-
INFORMATION etary because of the involvement of
QUALITY private-sector actors or investors;
• estimated – estimated based on national or
If knowledge is power, than a city without regional figures, without verification in
knowledge of its solid waste system may lack the field assessments;
power to make positive changes. Solid waste • political – highly politicized and subject to
information is subject to a number of widely distortions in support of the policy ambi-
encountered structural weaknesses. In many tions of particular stakeholders;
cities, information on solid waste is: • not permanent – because it related only to
a specific period of a government adminis-
• old – more than 10 years' old and, in some tration and experiences from previous
cases, more than 15, while changes in the administration are seen as 'useless';
composition of the waste stream, popula- • missing – missing or incomplete because
tion and behaviour are continuously there is no party willing to invest in gather-
occurring; ing accurate information on such a dirty
• orphaned – neither owned nor recognized subject; and/or
by the city itself, particularly in low- and • inaccessible – because it might not be writ-
middle-income countries, where a donor, or ten in the language of the municipality, but
a state, provincial or national government rather in the language of the consultant
paid for the study or financed the consult- hired by the donor.
ant, and did not ensure that the information
was useful for the city; or where there is no On the other hand, city governments or solid
central archiving system in the city; waste agencies that consider waste to be a prior-
1 Spaargaren et al, 2005. photos and stories from
2 GTZ/CWG, 2007; other cities around the
Lusaka city report and world will be presented
workbooks. based on this collective
3 In addition to the refer- memory.
ence cities, examples,
This City Inserts section represents the reader's introduction to the 20 reference
cities. Each of the 20 cities was 'profiled' for this report. The instruments for
profiling included a long data form for collecting information, entitled 'City
profile', and a shorter report template for presenting a summary of the data for
each city, which was entitled the 'City presentation document'. The city presenta-
tion documents, in particular, provide a wealth of information on the state of
solid waste management in a wide range of cities and form a good comparative
tool. The information they provide is presented in many tables in Chapters 2, 4,
and 5 of this report.
Due to the length and number of the city profile and city presentation
documents, they are not included in this report, but will be published as a
separate book in 2010. For this reason, a rather small extract of the information
is presented in this chapter, in the form of a two-page 'city insert' that includes
an introduction to each city and an overview of the solid waste system, seen
through the integrated sustainable waste management (ISWM) framework of
three physical systems and three governance aspects. Additional source
information on the 20 cities is available from their own websites, which are
listed in the References, and on the website of WASTE at www.waste.nl.
Solid Waste Management in the World's Cities
Interpreting the charts
Each city insert has a bar chart that presents a short series of indicators representing different aspects of a city's
solid waste system. Behind these indicators are the overarching 'drivers' for the modernization of the solid
waste management system, which include improving public health, reducing impacts to the environment and
increasing recovery of materials through prevention, recycling or separate organics management. While concep-
tualized separately, it is clear that the system aspects represented by these indicators are connected to each
other, and no indicator should be seen as completely separate from the whole system. An ISWM approach to
solid waste necessitates physical systems for management of materials, but other approaches for managing
behaviour of users, performance of providers and financial resources that make the whole system work. Thus,
'good governance' becomes a driver for a sustainable and adaptable solid waste system.
The purpose of the chart is to provide a visual representation, or 'snapshot', of the overall current condition
of modernization in each city. Since all the cities are actively planning, implementing and moving to improve the
sustainability of their solid waste systems, the image provided by the chart will continually change over time.
The charts provide an indication of how a city has addressed the solid waste management system as a whole: a
glimpse of how a city may be faring with regard to modernizing and managing their solid waste system. The
eight indicators were chosen because they were based upon data and written information that were provided
for almost every city in the study.
2 Controlled disposal Percentage of total waste destined for disposal that is deposited in an
environmental landfill or controlled disposal site, or any other formal
treatment system, including incineration.
3 Waste captured Percentage of waste collected by the formal and informal sector or deposited by
by the system households in containers or depots. The final destination is not relevant.
4 Materials prevented or Percentage of total waste which is prevented and recovered – that is,
recovered which fails to reach disposal because of prevention, reuse or valorization.
5 Provider inclusivity Composite score on a set of quality indicators allowing a yes for present and a
no for absent. Represents the degree to which service providers (and waste
recyclers) are included in the planning and implementation process of waste
management services and activities.
6 User inclusivity Composite score on a set of quality indicators allowing a yes for present and a
no for absent. Represents the degree to which users of the solid waste services are
included in policy formation, planning, implementation and evaluation of these services.
7 Financial sustainability The percentage of households who both use and pay for waste collection services.
8 Institutional coherence Composite score of low, medium or high. Combines a percentage indicator
for the degree to which the solid waste management budget is directly controlled
by the agency, or entity, formally designated to manage the solid system within the
city, combined with a qualitative assessment and the organogram.
City inserts
In addition to the key indicators in the chart, discussed in the following table, the City Inserts include, for
each city, a table of solid waste benchmarks. These are discussed further on in this introduction and represent
somewhat more 'normal' solid waste indicators than the chart.
The table below explains the quantitative and qualitative indicators utilized in the chart. These indicators
are cross-referenced to the 'drivers' of modernization and good practice solid waste management system:
improving public health; reducing impacts upon the environment; and improving resource management and
recovery of materials. Also in the table are indicators reflecting the three key aspects of governance in waste
management: inclusivity of both users and providers of waste services, financial sustainability, and the degree of
institutional coherence.
1 The main driver for solid waste modernization, which consists either of public health, environment or
resource management, or some combination. In general, where public health is the driver, the main focus
of physical systems will be on collection. Where environment is the driver, the main focus usually shifts to
disposal, and when environment is fully institutionalized, resource management is included both as a
second level of environmental improvement and the basis for economic activity in the formal and informal
2 A brief description waste collection and its relation to the public health driver.
3 A brief description of waste disposal and its relation to the environment driver.
4 A brief description of resource management, including recycling, composting, other forms of recovery,
prevention and organized reuse.
5 One good practice or special feature that the authors believe characterizes the 'personality' of the solid
waste system in that city.
Finally, throughout the text there will be information about the solid waste governance aspects in the city – that
is, inclusivity, financial sustainability and institutional coherence.
What follows is a table entitled 'Key benchmark numbers'. Whereas the bar chart has derived indicators,
the benchmarks are, above all, descriptors: quantitative information provided by the city itself. This group of
numbers is presented in order to complement and anchor the solid waste story. Unlike the chart, there are
slight variations in the benchmarks per city.
City inserts
Interpreting the key benchmark descriptors
Benchmark definition Definition
Total tonnes municipal solid waste (MSW) Reported tonnes of municipal solid waste generated, which includes residential,
generated per year commercial and institutional wastes, unless noted.
Generation per capita in kilograms per year This was either directly reported by the city or calculated based upon tonnes generated
and population reported.
Percentage coverage Percentage of a city's population covered by waste collection services.
Percentage disposal in environmentally sound landfills Percentage of the total waste generated that has been diverted to an environmental
or controlled disposal sites landfill or controlled disposal site.
Percentage municipal waste incinerated Percentage of the total waste generated that has been diverted to incineration, whether
or not there is energy recovery associated with such an option.
Percentage of waste prevented and valorized Percentage of the total waste generated that has been diverted by the formal and/or
informal sector through waste prevention or reuse, or valorized through recycling,
composting or other methods.
Percentage of waste valorized by informal sector Percentage of the total waste generated that has been diverted through recycling,
composting or other methods by the informal sector.
Percentage of waste valorized by formal sector Percentage of the total waste generated that has been diverted through recycling,
composting or other methods by the formal sector.
Goals for waste collection coverage as percentage Goals stated by the city, either formalized by regulations or included in strategic plans.
of population These may reflect percentages of coverage and/or dates for reaching some benchmark.
Goals for environmentally sound (safe) disposal Goals stated by the city, either formalized by regulations or included in strategic plans.
These may reflect percentage of the amount of waste, number of households or
population served and/or dates for reaching some benchmark.
Goals for valorization of waste materials through Goals stated by the city, either formalized by regulations or included in strategic plans.
recycling (or diversion from disposal) These can be through initiatives to increase waste prevention or reuse and/or by
developing the infrastructure to recover materials through recycling, composting or
some other means.
Prevented Percentage of the total waste generated and includes waste prevention strategies or
activities undertaken by individuals, businesses or institutions to reduce the volume and
toxicity of material discarded.
Reused Percentage of the total waste generated and includes use of waste materials or
discarded products in the same form without significant transformation, and may include
a system developed to repair/refurbish items.
Recycled Percentage of the total waste generated and indicates extraction, processing and
transformation of waste materials and their transfer to the industrial value chain, where
they are used for new manufacturing. For some cities, recycling is only considered to
have occurred when materials have been sold since the actual use of materials into the
manufacturing process may require exporting to other regions or even countries.
Composted/agricultural value chain Percentage of the total waste generated and indicates extraction and processing of
organic waste materials at a location that incorporates a process which manages and
controls decomposition of material to provide a soil amendment utilized by agriculture.
It could also include diverting organic wastes as feed for livestock, or technologies such
as anaerobic digestion.
The city insert closes with a section on main references used to create the presentation document and profile, if
provided by the city profilers, as well as websites or literature that will offer the reader additional information
on that city. The full set of references is included in the References chapter, and the full list of individuals work-
ing on gathering city data is included in the Acknowledgements.
Solid Waste Management in the World's Cities
South Australia, Australia, Australasia (Oceania)
40m above sea level
Public health/collection
The waste collection system in Adelaide is highly modernized, and 100 per cent of households in the Adelaide metropolitan area
receive a high-quality kerbside waste collection service, usually on a weekly basis. The high standards of collection and street and
public place cleansing services and customer care are consistent regardless of the socio-economic status of the area. Approximately
70 per cent of the population receive kerbside collection services that are operated by the private sector under contract to local
councils, and 30 per cent by a public company set up by a group of councils. The majority of collection services operate as three-bin
systems for separate collection of recyclables, green organics and residual waste.
City inserts
Landfilling has been carried out to a high standard of environmental protection
for decades. Yet, public opposition to a large landfill in the late 1990s, in
combination with recognition that the national target of reducing landfilling to
50 per cent of 1990 levels by 2000 had not been achieved, stimulated the
enactment of the Zero Waste Act in 2003. The goal is now to promote waste
management practices that, as far as possible, eliminate waste or its
consignment to landfill, advance the development of resource recovery and
recycling, and are based on an integrated strategy for the state.
While there is considerable landfill space available to dispose of Adelaide's
waste, diversion is encouraged by a combination of material-specific bans,
increases in landfill tax, and innovation in recycling and recovery through grants and research programmes. Whereas many cities in
the world are striving to bring all waste into controlled disposal, South Australia is striving to make disposal as irrelevant and unnec-
essary as possible.
Resource management
The recycling system is designed to collect source-separated comingled plastic, steel, cardboard, paper and aluminium packaging,
and to transport these materials to a materials recovery facility (MRF). After manual pre-sorting, automated sorting, compaction and
baling, the materials are transported to processing facilities for recycling or exported to overseas markets. Beverage containers
collected through container deposit legislation are also mechanically sorted before being transported to processing facilities.
Garden organics and food waste as well as 75 per cent of recovered timber and wood products are processed into soil conditioner,
compost, potting mixes and mulches, which are sold for residential and commercial use. The demand for composted organics has
shifted from soil conditioner to mulches, possibly due to a greater awareness of the need to conserve water in domestic gardens
under drought conditions. Approximately 25 per cent of recovered timber is used as fuel in cement kilns. The use of timber as a fuel
in cement manufacture began in 2004/2005 and has utilized significant quantities of timber previously disposed of to landfill.
Special features
Adelaide and South Australia's waste and resources management system is in some respects global best practice. South Australia has
demonstrated a high level of political commitment and willingness to 'stick its neck out' and implement some policies and legislation
upon which other administrations take a more conservative position. The Zero Waste Act and Plastic Bag Ban are two excellent exam-
ples of South Australia's politicians showing leadership by putting in place the institutional structures, financing mechanisms,
organizational capacity, and actions to support a major drive towards the 3Rs (reduce, reuse, recycle).
Public health/collection
Primary collection services – based on private-to-private arrangements and provided by micro- and small enterprises called
Groupements d'Intérêt Économique (GIEs) – cover some 57 per cent of households in the district of Bamako. Most collection is done
with 2-cubic-metre donkey-drawn carts that are staffed by one person. The average GIE has four carts and five donkeys. An increas-
ing number of GIEs are currently investing in motorized vehicles to improve their collection capacities. After collection, the GIEs
transport waste to one of the secondary collection points or sites (depots de transit), spread throughout the city. There are 36 such
officially designated secondary collection sites, but only 14 are in use and only 1 is functioning as intended. The unused sites may
either be open space or may be used for housing. This has resulted in over 75 large unauthorized secondary collection sites and
hundreds of small waste piles in the city. Although there are institutions responsible for controlling waste management activities,
enforcement is not realistic as there are hardly any alternatives. Residents who are not served by a GIE will either rely on informal
collectors or take their own waste to collection sites. The Direction des Services Urbains de Voirie et d'Assainissement (DSUVA), the
waste management department of the district of Bamako, is responsible for secondary waste collection and transport.
City inserts
Approximately 40 per cent of household waste collected by GIEs within the district of Bamako remains within the city limits, at the
depots or informal waste collection sites. The rest is transported by the DSUVA outside the city, where, depending on the season, it
is either sold to farmers due to its high organic content or dumped in open spaces. The main challenge that the district of Bamako
faces is the lack of an adequate final disposal site. There is insufficient space to build it within the limits of the district of Bamako;
thus it must be built on the territory of neighbouring municipalities, which is the responsibility of the national authorities to regu-
late. There is a site designated for a controlled landfill about 30km outside the city limits in Noumoubougou, but has remained
mostly unused because there is no clear body responsible for paying for its operation or the transportation costs involved, which are
prohibitively high. There are ongoing discussions for developing landfills or waste-to-energy facilities with foreign firms, but none
has materialized to date.
Resource management
The practice of terreautage at transit sites is common: the GIEs or the DSUVA take waste from the transit depots and sell it to crop
farmers (céréaliculteurs) or drop it on open land or in rivers. The waste that has broken down (called fumure, or terreau) is sold to
maraîchers, the vegetable farmers who grow their crops in the floodplain of the Niger River. The vegetable growers prefer to take
organic waste from the collection sites that has already undergone some decomposition and is, thus, considered more valuable. The
collection activities increase right before the rainy season because the demand from the crop farmers is very high. Recycling of non-
organics is done entirely by the informal sector and at a relatively low level; however, direct reuse of products is widespread.
Special features
There is a lively market for both fresh and partially decomposed raw waste, which consists of 40 per cent sand and grit from floor
sweepings and a large additional percentage of organic waste, and is a source of nutrients.1 The practice of terreautage is well estab-
lished, and is one of the barriers to making and selling compost formally; farmers do not see why they should pay a higher price for
compost than they are used to paying for unprocessed waste. This waste valorization system partially explains why a city the size of
Bamako avoids developing a landfill.
Communication about waste management in the district of Bamako occurs, among other means, through a local platform structure.
Since 2000, platforms have been established in each of the six communes in the district of Bamako, in parallel with general efforts
to decentralize government services. The platform model has allowed neighbourhoods to have more input in decisions about local
waste management practices.
1 UWEP (Urban Waste Expertise Programme) Urban Waste Expertise Programme
1996–2003 Report
Solid Waste Management in the World's Cities
Minas Gerais, Brazil, South America
600m–1600m above sea level
Public health/collection
The Superintendency for Urban Cleansing (Superintendência de Limpeza Urbana, or SLU) is responsible for municipal waste
management in Belo Horizonte. 95 per cent of the urban population and 70 per cent of the slum population received a collection
service in 2008. Sweeping, weeding and other services cover 85 per cent of paved roads. Almost 95 per cent of municipal waste
from households, institutions and commercial establishments is collected in urbanized areas by compactor trucks operating conven-
tional house-to-house collection routes. For urban slums (favelas) and areas that are difficult to access, a variety of alternatives are in
use. These range from so-called special kerbside collection using open trucks (less than 5 per cent), to secondary collection from
135 communal skip containers, or caçambas (10 per cent); to cleaning up of illegal dumps (over 15 per cent). 10 per cent of waste is
self-hauled to disposal by larger commercial, industrial and institutional waste generators themselves.
Between 1975 and 2007 all the municipal solid waste from Belo Horizonte went to the designated disposal site Centro de
Tratamento de Resíduos Sólidos (CTRS BR-040), a treatment centre for solid waste, in Bairro Califórnia, 12km from the city centre.
This 115ha centre hosts a small composting plant, a recycling facility for construction waste, a storage for used tyres, a temporary
storage facility for long-life packaging material, and a unit for environmental education. In the course of its use, the disposal site was
upgraded into a sanitary landfill. A carbon credit certification project for landfill gas recovery has been recently approved for a total
amount of 16 million Brazilian reais for exploration of biogas at the CTRS BR-040 site. The site was closed in 2007 and a new site is
being sought. Since the closure of the landfill in December 2007, part of the old landfill has been transformed into a transfer station
for transferring waste to more distant privately operated facilities. A new regional landfill is in the planning.
City inserts
Resource management
The adoption of integrated solid waste management in 1993 made the recovery of recyclables a key feature of waste management in
Belo Horizonte. Recovery of construction and demolition waste is the most significant recovery programme of the municipality and
is operated through a mix of informal waste collectors, and municipal secondary collection service and recycling plants. Recyclable
non-paper, plastic, glass and metals are collected as follows:
• since 1993, a drop-off system consisting of 150 delivery sites with 450
containers, which are emptied weekly by the SLU staff;
• since 2003, a kerbside collection system by the SLU, currently target-
ing almost 354,000 residents;
• door-to-door collection of recyclables by co-operatives of waste-pickers
from commercial establishments and offices in the downtown area,
using hand-drawn push carts.
Special features
Waste management in Belo Horizonte has been a priority since 1900 when various advanced technologies were applied. Only later,
during the 1960s, did the city resort to open dumping. Since 1990, the city has been at the centre of solid waste management
development in Brazil again, leading the movement for inclusion of the informal recycling sector. In 1990, the city included a clause
in its Organic Law stating that the collection of recyclables would preferably be the work of co-operatives – the organized informal
sector – and that they should be the beneficiary of all collected recyclables. In 1993 the city partnered with this first waste-pickers'
co-operative in the implementation of its municipal recycling scheme.
Since 2003 waste-pickers' co-operatives and informal collectors of debris have joined forces in the Belo Horizonte Waste and
Citizenship Forum, which has been an important institutional medium in which to discuss guidelines for the integration of all these
organizations within solid waste management (SWM).
SLU (Superintendência de Limpeza Urbana) (2008) Annual Report 2008 of the SLU, Belo Horizonte, Brazil IBGE (2007)
IBGE (Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Etatistica) (2007)
Solid Waste Management in the World's Cities
Karnataka State, India, South Asia
920–962m above sea level
Public health/collection
There is strong political commitment to improving and modernizing collection, with high-level performance goals and a mixed
system approach. A mix of the municipality and private operators provide a direct, daily door-to-door primary collection system to 70
per cent of Bengaluru citizens in high-income, middle-income and some low-income and slum areas. Private contractors provide serv-
ices in the central business district and in the better-off residential areas. The handcarts used by the door-to-door collectors are
directly unloaded into large vehicles, including auto-tippers and state-of-the-art compactors, for transportation to the processing or
disposal sites, making most of the city effectively bin free. The exception is a few low-income areas on the city boundaries and in old
settlements, where the municipality provides less frequent and less regular waste collection services from community waste collec-
City inserts
It is estimated that nearly 10 per cent of waste still goes for
open dumping. Two designated controlled dumpsites closed
in 2007, and the rest of Bengaluru waste now goes to two
new modern landfills constructed near processing plants in
Mavallipura Hesaragatta Hobli and Mandur BideraHalli Hobli.
The expected useful life is at least until 2030, provided that
the processing plants function at full capacity. The landfill
sites are operated by the private sector based on
public–private partnership (PPP) models.
Resource management
The 2000 Municipal Solid Waste Rules require cities to
recover all recyclables and compostable materials and only
allow rejects and inerts to be landfilled. Even though this has
not been operationalized, in Bengaluru, 25 per cent of the total waste is being valorized by informal and formal activities, and there
are plans for more. An active informal sector recovers around 15 per cent of the city waste and feeds the regional industrial
recycling supply chain, while supporting livelihoods of more than 30,000 waste-pickers in the city and at the landfill site, who sell to
junk dealers, sorters and recycling units, which comprise an additional estimated 10,000 workers. Now that a formal door-to-door
collection system has been extended to the majority of the population, the formal-sector waste collectors and transfer station work-
ers also retrieve recyclables and sell to small scrap dealers. Segregated organic waste from hotels and fruit and vegetable markets is
directly taken to four composting plants, operated by the formal private sector on PPP models. The compost is sold to the fertilizer
agencies who market it mostly to coffee planters and large farmers. There is still not enough demand for compost; hence, the
processing plants produce compost when they have buyers, and the rest goes to the landfill sites. There are plants under construc-
tion to make refuse-derived fuel (RDF) from the rejects from compost processing, which contains some organic material and often a
high percentage of paper and plastic.
Special features
As Bengaluru has an intensive IT industry, there are NGO initiatives to decrease relatively dangerous informal e-waste recycling and
to collect e-waste separately and send it for formal recycling and recovery. The IT industry is also a key player in the Bangalore
Agenda Task Force (BATF) initiative, organizing the modernization of waste management and upgrading of collection.
Bengaluru City Development Plan, 2007
Solid Waste Management in the World's Cities
San Vicente de Cañete, Peru, South America
33m above sea level
Public health/collection
Currently the municipal waste collection services are provided to 93 per cent of the urban population and only to 15 per cent of the
rural population in Cañete. The service in the urban area is provided daily. Currently there are initiatives to expand services in rural
All the wastes collected are transported to a controlled dumpsite, Pampa Arena, located 15km to the south of Cañete. This dumpsite
has been in use by the municipality for 20 years. The municipality is currently organizing decentralized solid waste services using
several other small dumpsites in rural settlements.
Resource management
There is a separate collection for inorganic recyclables with a focus on plastics, metals, paper, cardboard and glass in about 15 per
cent of the city. The collectors are four women and three men – formalized waste-pickers who used to work at the dumpsite. About
10 per cent of the waste is recovered by informal itinerant waste buyers and waste-pickers, including those at the dumpsite. This
percentage is increasing due to the municipal commitment to source separation, which is based on inclusion of the informal sector.
There are 176 people working in informal solid waste and recycling in the Cañete district: 121 men, 50 women and 5 children
(between 12 and 15 years of age). Women and children are mainly engaged in street waste-picking. The conditions of work of these
people are poor in terms of security, occupational safety and security of income.
City inserts
Special features
There are new programmes for valorization that
include recycling in schools and demonstration
composting facilities. The municipal authorities
have made a decision to develop as active as
possible a separate collection system for
recyclables in order to eliminate or substantially
reduce the need for post-collection sorting.
There are high prices and levels of demand for
polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottles in the
market for recyclables in Peru, which command
better prices than other materials. Consequently,
they constitute 30 to 40 per cent of the income
in Cañete's Selective Collection Programme. The
second highest value waste material is paper
(mainly white paper) and then the other
plastics – polypropylene (PP), polystyrene (PS)
and plastic bags. In the municipal environmental
demonstration centre there are several activities
to valorize organic waste: composting, vermi-
composting, a nursery and a vegetable garden.
Public health/collection
Curepipe has well-managed waste collection, waste disposal and street cleaning, which results in an overall 'tidy' city. Household
wastes are collected door to door on a weekly basis by a mixture of private contractors (40 per cent) and the municipality (60 per
cent). There are parallel waste collection systems for households and for the commercial institutions, and coverage is reported to be
100 per cent.
The waste from both residential and commercial collection systems goes to the transfer station at La Brasserie, where wastes are
compacted before being transported to the landfill at Mare Chicose. The landfill became operational in 1997 and since then has
been taking waste from all parts of the island. The expectation was that it would have no further capacity after 2010 and this has led
to current plans for much of the organic fraction of the waste to be composted and used in agriculture. In the meantime, the landfill
has been extended to keep receiving waste until 2015, unless more waste is recycled than is now the case.
The construction of the landfill was funded by the national government as a strategy for controlling disposal and closing the unspeci-
fied number of unauthorized dumps that threatened the image of Mauritius as a beautiful tourist destination. The operation of the
site was let out by tender to a private operator. The modern landfill has an appropriate liner system, leachate treatment facilities,
landfill gas collection and flaring system. The waste is covered on a daily basis, normally using soil.
City inserts
Resource management
Mauritius has very little in the way of primary industries to take recycled materials. An informal sector collects bottles, tins,
aluminium and metal for shipping to recyclers off the island. Even though there is a very good awareness of the importance of recy-
cling, there are few local markets and therefore currently no formal recycling of materials from the domestic waste stream. Curepipe
has set up a project with a non-governmental organization (NGO), Mission Verte, to put recycling bins around the city to collect
general waste, paper, cans and plastic, even though there are no recycling facilities on the island. This material, after being
separately collected, is also mixed in the transfer station.
Construction and demolition wastes are
collected by the municipality and private
contractors as requested by the waste generator;
but the majority of the construction and demoli-
tion wastes are recycled back to operational
construction sites. Separate collection of green
wastes has taken place for many years in
Curepipe; but all the collected materials are
mixed together at the transfer station before
being transported to the landfill site.
Nevertheless, this provides a basis for the
planned expansion of composting as a form of
landfill avoidance.
Special features
Care for the environment has been a key
element of Mauritian law for many years, with
one of the main drivers being to maintain a thriv-
ing tourist industry, which is dependent on a
high-quality natural environment. The need to
protect the coral reefs and the surrounding
ocean has been instrumental in the construction
of high-quality wastewater treatment systems and the construction of a state-of-the-art containment landfill for the whole island at
Mare Chicose. Being an island of 1.3 million inhabitants, strategic decisions on solid waste management are taken at island level,
rather than at municipal level.
Public health/collection
Delhi has opted to maintain a community container infrastructure, and most residents and other waste generators bring their waste
to temporary storage points, called dhalaos. In a service organized by non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and the New Delhi
Municipal Committee, in coordination with resident welfare associations (RWAs), private door-to-door waste collection service is
provided by waste-pickers at a fixed monthly fee to 80 per cent of high-, middle- and low-income households in New Delhi munici-
pality. The service providers take the waste to the dhalaos, extracting the valuable materials before discharge. Since 2005, four
private companies have been servicing these secondary collection points under a public–private partnership (PPP) agreement with
the city authorities; currently, they serve approximately 50 per cent of the total area and the municipalities do the rest.
Delhi relies on well-organized waste disposal in three controlled disposal sites, at Okhla, Bhalaswa, and Gazipur, but without envi-
ronmental protection measures. The three sites have all reached capacity, but are still in operation as the future landfills are not yet
ready. A feasibility study has been prepared for gas recovery and utilization after closure of these sites to reduce greenhouse gas
City inserts
Resource management
The resource management activities in Delhi are a rich
mixture of government, private, informal and formal recovery
and valorization. Formal service providers direct the organic
waste to the two privately managed composting plants in
Okhla and Bhalaswa. In addition, there are small-scale
composting units initiated by NGOs and RWAs at community
level, such as in Defence Colony, a neighbourhood in South
Delhi in the MCD area. Catering establishments such as
hotels give away or sell organic waste to the informal sector,
which sells it on to piggeries as feed. At least 150,000 waste-
pickers throughout the Delhi waste management system
divert over 25 per cent of all waste generated in Delhi from
disposal and into recycling of materials, thus saving very
substantial funds for the municipal authorities. They upgrade
the materials and sell them into the recycling supply chain, a
pyramid going from pickers to the small junk dealers
(kabaris), on the boundaries of formal and informal recycling.
The kabaris sell to specialized dealers and end-users, and
some material is also exported.
Special features
The contribution of the informal sector to solid waste management and resource recovery has been explicitly and officially
recognized in several documents, including the National Action Plan on Climate Change of June 2008. Numerous organizations,
such as Chintan Environmental Research and Action Group, advocate rights and organize the activities of these informal waste
professionals, who are increasingly part of the global movement for integration of the informal sector.
Public health/collection
The main model of waste collection in Dhaka is based on door-to-door primary collection of waste by micro-enterprises, who take
the waste to designated points on the roadside or collection/transfer points. The municipal authority, Dhaka City Corporation (DCC),
services these secondary collection points. Ward-based waste management schemes are in place in several wards of Dhaka City.
Citizens form an active part of the waste management efforts, receive training, promote public awareness, monitor system perform-
ance, and help in troubleshooting. Primary collectors in the ward are also given training, which facilitates integrating primary
collection with the secondary collection by DCC.
Collected waste is disposed of at one of the two disposal sites: Matuail and Aminbazar. Matuail is the first ever sanitary landfill in
Bangladesh, upgraded from a dumpsite previously in operation for many years. The resulting engineered disposal facility opened in
October 2007 as a part of a long-standing partnership between DCC and Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA). Matuail
now has year-round access, gate controls, a computerized weighbridge, perimeter drainage, cellular emplacement, and leachate and
landfill gas control. DCC now faces the more challenging task of operating and maintaining the facility as a sanitary landfill, and to
date the facility is being managed well. Matuail is operated 24 hours a day in three shifts. It receives around 1200 tonnes of waste
per day, arriving at both day- and night-time. DCC is currently in the process of upgrading the Aminbazar disposal site.
City inserts
Resource management
The concept of 'waste' is only a relatively recent phenomenon in Bangladesh, and many of the materials which are generally consid-
ered to be waste in other countries are stripped out of the waste stream for extraction of resource value. Newspapers, glass bottles,
metal cans, plastic items – practically anything of value – are reused or sold by their owners or informal waste-pickers. Resource
recovery in Dhaka is carried out and managed by multiple and complex chains of informal and formal, public, private and
multinational actors. About 120,000 people are involved in the informal recycling trade chain in Dhaka City. None of these activities
receive any public funding support. The organic fraction, more than 65 per cent of municipal waste, was traditionally not viewed as
valuable, and composting in the 1990s failed to spread due to a lack of markets. A new compost plant located just outside Dhaka
started operation in 2008 by WWR Bio Fertilizer Bangladesh Ltd (a joint venture company of Waste Concern, Bangladesh, World
Wide Recycling BV, FMO and Triodos Bank, The Netherlands). This activity is accompanied by collection services of market (organic)
waste for this composting plant. The project is registered and approved by the executive board of the Clean Development
Mechanism under the Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and is gradually
scaling up.
Special features
Dhaka offers an excellent example of a waste management
plan being prepared to a high standard, and then being imple-
mented in management cycles with the support of
development partners. Some of the achievements are the
establishment of a waste management department;
implementation of a ward-based approach to waste manage-
ment; and construction of the first ever sanitary landfill in
Bangladesh. In 2008 a new Waste Management Department
was inaugurated at DCC, combining the conservancy and
mechanical engineering departments into a single
department, putting Dhaka City Corporation at the forefront
of modernized institutional arrangements for solid waste
management in South Asia.
Public health/collection
Ghorahi relies on both motorized and non-motorized collection to keep the city clean. On-time collection using a tipper and
compactor in some parts of the city collects about 50 per cent of the waste, while the other half is collected through roadside collec-
tion using a sequence of open dumping, sweeping, manual loading of rickshaws, and manual transfer to a larger mechanized vehicle.
This involves handling the waste several times, which is inefficient and increases public health risks.
While waste collection still has a long way to go in the modernization process, the city has done an impressive job in addressing the
environmental issues related to waste disposal. The municipality's own Karauti Danda Sanitary Landfill is one of only three landfill
sites in the country. Environmental protection is achieved through selection of a site with thick deposits of natural clay, a leachate
collection and treatment system, as well as a buffer zone that includes a small forest, a flower garden and bee farming.
Resource management
The resource management system is a mixture of formal, informal, public and private. The municipality has a plastic sorting facility
at the landfill site, where about 20 tonnes of plastics are recovered annually and marketed to a recycling industry about 350km away
in Chitwan district. Compost pits are also present on the site of the landfill; but efforts to sell the compost have proved disappoint-
ing and demand for the compost remains weak, probably due to glass contamination. Collection of recyclables is done by about 35
informal sector itinerant waste buyers (IWBs) who sell plastics, metal, bottles and paper to four (formal) private recycling businesses.
The total amount of recyclable materials recovered is estimated to be between 100 and 500 tonnes per year. Most of the waste from
rural areas is reported to be recycled within the households; but there is little information about either recycling or composting
outside of the city.
City inserts
Special features
Governance is the main special feature in Ghorahi: first, because of the priority given to safe disposal and recycling, and, second,
because the city has set up appropriate institutional mechanism for managing waste. This mechanism also involves other stakehold-
ers: the landfill management system includes a committee involving local community leaders and members of the business
community. Moreover, the city has supported the formation of 218 community-based organizations. There is room to improve cost
recovery to ensure that the waste management system as a whole is sustainable. The city has just started to collect service fees for
waste management; but the rates are fairly low and the municipality's target is to raise only about 10 per cent of the total waste
management costs from users.
SWMRMC (2007) Baseline Information on Solid Waste Management of
Tribhuwannagar Municipality of Nepal, Solid Waste Management and
Resource Mobilization Centre, Ministry of Local Development, Kathmandu
SchEMS, SWMRMC and Ghorahi Municipality (2005) Initial Environmental
Examination (IEE) Proposed Karauti Danda Sanitary Landfill Site, 2005, Solid
Waste Management and Resource Mobilization Centre, Ministry of Local
Development, Kathmandu
CEN, ENPHO and SWMRMC (2003) Solid Waste Management in Tribhuwan
Nagar Municipality, 2003, Solid Waste Management and Resource
Mobilization Centre, Ministry of Local Development, Kathmandu
PAN and EU (2008) Best Practices on Solid Waste Management in Nepalese
Cities, Practical Action Nepal, Kathmandu
Solid Waste Management in the World's Cities
Yunnan Province, People's Republic of China, Asia
1890m above sea level
Public health/collection
Consistent with the priorities of socialist states elsewhere, Kunming has long had virtually 100 per cent collection coverage and city
streets are clean. Collection occurs daily in the central business district and less frequently elsewhere. Collection and sweeping are
operated by two levels of government under the city administrative level – the district level and the 'street neighbourhood' or ward
level. Kunming has an excellent waste collection system based on over 120 small transfer stations throughout the city and a combi-
nation of low-tech tricycles and high-tech compaction vehicles; all are operated by public employees. Since 2006, street sweeping
has been progressively privatized in the city's districts and the trend towards privatization is likely to continue in solid waste services
in general.
City inserts
With economic development and changes in
lifestyles, waste composition has changed
markedly, and the percentage of ash in munici-
pal solid waste has decreased from over 50 per
cent in 1997 to less than 25 per cent in 2004.
Final waste disposal is controlled – municipal
waste ends either in the incinerator or at one of
the two landfills. The technology of choice for
the near future is incineration once the existing
landfills are closed, something which is
expected soon. One of the landfills, Guandu,
has an ongoing carbon credit project in coopera-
tion with a European partner, by chance the
same partner as in Belo Horizonte, Brazil.
Resource management
The existing – and thriving – recycling business,
with the focus on metals, functions as commod-
ity trading and is separate from the solid waste
management system, as was the case in the US and Europe prior to the 1970s, the Philippines during the 1990s, and Lusaka, Moshi,
Bamako and Nairobi up to the present. In contrast, the opportunities to develop valorization of organic waste have not yet been
Special features
The more than 120 small transfer stations represent a global good practice and have provided a model for other cities worldwide for
connecting non-motorized community collection with high-technology compacted motorized transport, for an effective waste collec-
tion service. Another special feature in Kunming is the city's successful involvement of the private sector in financing the
development of new disposal capacity, including incineration.
Public health/collection
Lusaka is a city which has decided to actively design and manage a mixed collection system. The dual waste collection system is
based on the city managing and monitoring a zonal monopoly system tailored to the demographics of different communities. All
operators are responsible for marketing services, collecting fees, implementing collection, and meeting targets. Formal private-sector
operators collect waste door to door, or provide skip buckets for larger generators or housing estates in the conversional (planned)
areas. Micro-franchising of primary waste collection via contracts to community-based organizations (CBOs), based on International
Labour Organization (ILO) area studies, is the main coverage strategy in the peri-urban (informal) areas. This produces a total official
coverage rate of 45 per cent, which does not, however, include the more than 30 per cent of households who are served by unregis-
tered informal collection service providers. The city council organizes street sweeping differently, with performance contracts by
City inserts
The enactment of the Environmental Protection and
Pollution Control Act in 1990 has brought waste
management to prominence in terms of
environmental protection. Partly through support
from the Danish International Development Agency
(DANIDA) and other donors, Lusaka is a city where
environmentally sound disposal is being developed
concurrently with collection. The city boasts
Zambia's only engineered sanitary landfill, with a
weighbridge and gate controls and a tipping fee; but
there is also widely reported illegal dumping in
drains, quarries and open places. Also somewhat
unusually for a low-income country, the previously
controlled dumpsite has been officially decommis-
Resource management
Lusaka has a very small informal recycling sector and a relatively active formal one, which together achieve a recycling rate of about
6 per cent of total generated. Five formal recycling companies organize their own collection depots and pick-up service for paper,
plastic and metals, which are transported to Zimbabwe or South Africa.
Special features
The high participation of informal service providers in Lusaka provides both a challenge and an opportunity for the city council, the
waste management unit and policy-makers. In terms of good practice, Lusaka is an unusually clear example of an African capital city
which has made a clear decision – backed up by practical steps – to take the controlling role in managing a mixed waste system. This
attention to governance sets Lusaka apart from many other African cities as an example of global good practice.
GTZ/CWG (2007) Lusaka City Report, Annex 6
Solid Waste Management in the World's Cities
Nicaragua, Central America, the Americas
on average 83m above sea level
Public health/collection
The city reports 82 per cent area coverage for household waste collection service. However, only 65 per cent of the waste collected
comes directly from the households. 23 per cent of all collected municipal wastes (including household, commercial and industrial)
comes from the cleaning up of illegal dumpsites. Managua operates its own waste collection fleet made up largely of donor-supplied
vehicles and equipment that is reported to be 'extremely costly to run'. The city has a number of unsuccessful experiences with
micro- and small enterprises (MSEs) and community-based organizations (CBOs) for household waste collection, which contrasts
with some other Central American countries such as Honduras or Costa Rica, where MSE private contractors for household waste
collection are well established. A limited number of private contractors do provide waste collection services to some commercial and
industrial generators in the city. The municipal government recognizes that the current arrangements are unsustainable, and with
the support of UN-Habitat recently began a strategic planning process which seeks to provide the technical, financial and
institutional framework for improving waste collection, treatment and disposal services in the city.
City inserts
An estimated 90 per cent of municipal waste goes
to the La Chureca controlled disposal site, which
has been operating for nearly 40 years. Managua
has not, to date, suffered any specific public health
or environmental crisis that would lead to sustained
citizen pressure for the upgrading of municipal
solid waste (MSW) management services. In fact,
the public's evaluation of this municipal service is
consistently positive. This may account for the fact
that for a long time there was a general lack of
ownership of the disposal problem and that over
the last 15 years, significant study and donor
support for waste management failed to translate
into sustained improvements. However, this situa-
tion is changing. The La Chureca site is being
upgraded as part of the Spanish-funded Integrated
Development of the Acahualinca Neighbourhood Project. The plan is for it to be operated for a period of five to seven years while a
new sanitary landfill site can be identified and developed.
Improving the environment is also a key driver for the current central government. The central government has prioritized the
subject of solid waste management (SWM) in its environmental agenda and is in the process of updating and facilitating the imple-
mentation of the National Policy for Integrated Solid Waste Management passed in 2005.
Resource management
The increase in the number of private individuals and businesses earning a livelihood in waste recovery and recycling in Managua
during the last ten years appears to be related to the high levels of under- and unemployment in the city, as well as the increases in
global recycling market demand. Despite the recent global economic crisis, the number of intermediaries, exporters and recyclers
dedicated to this activity remains fairly stable and the recent formation of a national association of recyclers, Associacion Nacional de
Recicladores (ASORENIC), suggests that the upward trend in waste recovery and recycling activities will continue in the foreseeable
Special features
The First National Recycling Forum was held in Managua on 17 to 18 August 2009 with the aim of establishing the basis for devel-
oping waste recovery and recycling at the national level, and represents an important first step in the recognition and integration of
private-sector recycling activities within the MSW management system. There are a number of current initiatives, including the
United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) public–private partnerships (PPPs) for the urban environment and Basmanagua
projects supporting the integration of the informal waste recovery and recycling sector within the municipal SWM system.
Generation per capita in kilograms per year 420kg Percentage valorized by formal sector of total waste generated 17%
Percentage coverage 82% Goals for waste collection coverage as percentage of population None
Percentage disposal in environmentally sound landfills or 90% Goals for environmentally sound (safe) disposal Upgrading of
controlled disposal sites of total waste generated dumpsite; siting,
design and
development of
new sanitary
Percentage municipal waste incinerated of total waste generated None Goals for valorization of waste materials through recycling Being developed
(or diversion from disposal)
Percentage diverted and valorized of total waste generated 19% Prevented NA
Reused NA
Recycled NA
Composted/agricultural value chain 0.01%/1.99%
Notes: NA = not available.
Figures in italics are estimates.
Solid Waste Management in the World's Cities
Tanzania, Kilimanjaro Region, East Africa
700m–950m above sea level from south to north
Public health/collection
Waste collection services are provided by the Moshi Municipal Council (MMC), a private contractor on a pilot basis, and community-
based organizations (CBOs). The private contractor provides services in one of three wards in the central business district (of 15 in
total in Moshi). The arrangement is that private contractors collect both waste and fee and pay 3 per cent of the total fee collected
to the municipal council. ThemmC serves the rest of the urban area and provides secondary collection in peri-urban areas where
CBOs and individuals are doing primary collection.
Moshi has a controlled dumpsite, which is one of the best managed in the country. The site is fenced and has a gate attendant.
About 15 waste-pickers work on the dumpsite.
City inserts
Resource management
There are no records of how much waste is valorized, but the estimates are that 20 per cent – or one third of the organic waste
generated – goes into the agricultural supply chain, either as animal feed or compost.
Special features
Moshi is a good example of stakeholder participation and both provider and user inclusivity. A stakeholder platform has been active
since 1999, comprised of the municipality and citizens, as well as CBOs. Service coverage is designed to include all areas equitably
and the implementation is ongoing. In order to provide basic collection and sweeping services in the low-income or peri-urban areas,
which constitute one third of all households (36.5 per cent), primary waste collection is conducted by CBOs and the municipal
council carries out secondary collection.
Integrated Waste Management in Tanzania (1998) www.GDRC.ORG/uem/waste/matrix/project.htm
JKUAT (2001) 'Sustainable management of domestic solid wastes in developing countries', Journal of Civil Engineering, vol 6, pp13–26
Kironde, J. M and Yhdego M. (1997) 'The governance of waste management in urban Tanzania: Towards a community based approach', Resources,
Conservation and Recycling, vol 21, no 4, pp213–226
Mato, R. (1997) Environmental Profile for Tanzania, Report prepared for JICA
Mato, R. and Kassenga G. (1996) Development of Environmental Guidelines for Solid Waste Management in Tanzania, Consultancy report to NEMC
MMC (1999) Environmental Profile of Moshi Municipality, Moshi
MMC (2006) The Moshi Municipal Council Waste Management Bylaws, Moshi
MMC (2008a) Environmental Profile of Moshi Municipality, Moshi
MMC (2008b) Health and Cleansing Department Annual
Report, Moshi
MMC (2008c) Comprehensive Council Health Plan, Moshi
URT (2004) The Environmental Management Act (EMA),
URT/Ministry of Health (2003) Waste Management
Guidelines, Moshi
Yhdego, M. (1995) 'Urban solid waste management in
Tanzania: Issues, concepts and challenges', Resources,
Conservation and Recycling, vol 14, no 1, pp1–10
Solid Waste Management in the World's Cities
Kenya, East Africa
1660m above sea level
Public health/collection
Nairobi is a city where, for the last two decades, the private sector has been leading the way in waste collection and materials recov-
ery initiatives. The flourishing private waste collection sector consists of more than 100 companies, micro- and small enterprises
(MSEs) and community-based organizations (CBOs) registered to collect waste, recyclables and compostables. The city authority's
focus has been in policy development and other donor-driven initiatives. In the year 2001, the City Council of Nairobi (CCN)
published a policy document on private-sector involvement in solid waste management (SWM) to define a systematic approach and
provide a framework of operation. It further formulated a policy framework in 2002 to promote the private activities of non-state
actors in composting and recycling. Acknowledging private collection efforts, the CCN instituted a formal registration process for
collectors in 2006.
The flip side of successful private initiative is the laissez-faire attitude shown by public bodies in relation to disposal. In the nearly 15
years of solid waste modernization since the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) began its waste management plan in
1996, the CCN, which is responsible for disposal, has not yet made it onto the disposal upgrading ladder. As a result, the CCN relies
entirely on the Dandora dumping site, situated in a former quarry some 25km to the east of the city centre, for uncontrolled
disposal of municipal waste.
City inserts
Resource management
Recovery of materials occur in all stages of waste material flow
through the city, but most extensively by about 1000 waste-pick-
ers living on the Dandora dumpsite, with some coming from the
neighbouring suburbs. The main items of importance are paper,
textile, glass, metals and bones. Recycling provides informal
employment and a means of livelihood to many informal recyclers,
and reduces CCN's waste management costs. With a Chandaria
paper mill and a large industrial base, combined with many
commercial relationships with regional powerhouse South Africa,
markets for recyclables in Nairobi are better than in most other
East African countries. One research study showed that 20 per
cent of the household wastes generated were recovered by either
informal pickers or CCN employees. The CCN tends to overlook
the informal recovery and recycling, making formalization and integration of the informal waste recycling activities within the formal
SWM system difficult.
Special features
Nairobi reports 60 to 70 per cent collection coverage, with nearly 100 per cent in the central business district, and overall 54 per
cent of generated waste being collected – quite an achievement for the private waste sector.
1 City Council of Nairobi (2006) 2006–2010 Strategic Plan, City Council of Nairobi, September
Solid Waste Management in the World's Cities
National Capital Region, the Philippines,
South-East Asia
14°38'N 121°2'E; 8m–20m above sea level
Public health/collection
Each of Quezon City's 2.86 million people (as of 2009) generates over 0.66kg of garbage every day (WACS, 2003). Organic or
biodegradable wastes represent the highest percentage of waste generated (48 per cent) by households and commercial
establishments. This is followed by recyclable wastes (39 per cent) and residual wastes (13 per cent), which are disposed of at the
Quezon City Controlled Disposal Facility in Payatas. Among the recyclables, paper and plastics are the most highly generated, with
17 and 16 per cent, respectively (SWAPP, 2006). The city's waste collection is done through both formal and informal systems.
Formal waste collection is undertaken by 5 city contracted hauliers, 13 barangays with their own collection trucks, and private
hauliers for commercial establishments. The 'package clean-up' system ensures that each contractor takes full responsibility for all of
the zones in which they work, including the provision of street sweepers; information, education and communication (IEC)
campaigners; riverways cleaning; bulky waste collection and a subsystem of garbage collection for inaccessible areas. The city collec-
tion gets about 365,390 tonnes; barangay collection is about 29,628 tonnes and private commercial collection is 75,880 tonnes.
Informal collection, by itinerant waste buyers (IWBs) focuses only on recyclables.
The Quezon City Controlled Disposal Facility is the oldest dumpsite in Metro Manila, operating for more than three decades. Once a
symbol of everything that was wrong with waste disposal systems, the dumpsite has been transformed into a model and pioneering
disposal facility. Through the Biogas Emission Reduction Project, initiated in 2007, accumulating biogas from the soil-covered
garbage mound is now being extracted, flared and converted into usable electricity. The project is registered under the Clean
Development Mechanism (CDM) and is projected to cut down greenhouse gas emissions by 1,162,000 tonnes of CO2 throughout
its operating life.
City inserts
Resource management
Collection of recyclables is done by both the formal and informal waste sector. For the formal sector, it is undertaken by the city
collectors and barangay collectors. For the informal sector, it is done by itinerant waste buyers at the household level, garbage crews
on the trucks, and waste-pickers at the dumpsite and the junk shops; in combination they get 241,195 tonnes. While itinerant waste
buyers recover 73 per cent of the stated amount, the junk shops are the main system players that pool recyclables from the different
sources for final recovery by the recycling industries and/or exporters. While some barangays have materials recovery facilities
(MRFs), others have junk shops which have been registered and designated as fulfilling the MRF function. Biodegradable wastes that
consist mostly of food wastes are collected from households and establishments by city collectors, barangay collectors, accredited
kitchen waste collectors or private commercial hauliers. These are processed into composts, soil conditioners or feeds for animals.
The total organics being generated at source is 383,499 tonnes per year. The buyers of the organics are livestock growers who get
12,723 tonnes and the compost producers and traders who get 1592 tonnes.
Special features
Quezon City has the highest recovery rate of any of the low- and middle-income reference cities, and the Philippines is active in the
3R Asia Regional Forum. The Philippines National Strategy for the integration of the informal sector, written in 2008 and supported
by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), represents global best practice.
HMR Envirocycle Inc (2009) E-waste Price List, HMR Envirocycle Inc, 5 June
Quezon City Environment Multi-Purpose Cooperative (2009) Average Price
List – Year 2008, Quezon City Environment Multi-Purpose Cooperative,
Quezon City
Quezon City Planning and Development Office (2009) Quezon City Socio-
Ecological Profile, Quezon City Planning and Development Office, Quezon
SWAPP (2006) Economic Aspects of Informal Sector Activities in Solid Waste
Management in Quezon City, Solid Waste Management Association of the
Philippines (SWAPP), Quezon City, 31 October
WACS (2000) Terms of Reference on Solid Waste Collection, Cleaning and
Disposal Services, Quezon City Environmental Protection and Waste
Management Department, Quezon City
WACS (2003) Waste Characterization Study for Quezon City (ADB Study),
Quezon City Environmental Protection and Waste Management Department, Quezon City, June
WACS (2008) Quezon City 10 Year Solid Waste Management Plan, Quezon City Environmental Protection and Waste Management Department, Quezon City
WACS (2009a) Assessment of Quezon City's Compliance with Requirements of R.A. 9003 (With Door-to-Door Collection), Quezon City Environmental
Protection and Waste Management Department, Quezon City
WACS (2009b) Quezon City 2008 Accomplishment Report, Quezon City Environmental Protection and Waste Management Department, Quezon City
Solid Waste Management in the World's Cities
South Holland, The Netherlands, Europe
altitude: below North Sea level
Public health/collection
ROTEB, the municipal waste management department, is run as a public company although its budget comes from the municipality.
It currently has a legal monopoly in the collection of household waste and waste from mixed residential/commercial zones, but is in
competition with the private sector with respect to commercial and institutional waste. The ROTEB was founded during the late
1800s, established as a municipal department, under political control and in response to public health concerns. Waste collection
operates according to a weekly routine, applying one (plastic bag, 240 litre container), two (plastic bag, 1100 litre container) or
three (3m3, 4m3 and 5m3 underground containers) collection services per week.
During the 1970s in The Netherlands, the awareness about the public health and environmental impacts of hazardous waste became
a political crisis when contamination was discovered at Lekkerkerk, a settlement built on a former dumpsite. This crisis and those
that followed prompted the modernization of disposal and the closing of dumps and older incinerators, also in Rotterdam. The high
water table in The Netherlands and its high degree of urbanization have pushed the country to opt for minimizing landfilling and
optimizing recycling, composting and incineration. The result is a dense network of processing and disposal facilities owned by both
private and public companies, and Rotterdam has more than its share of high-performance disposal facilities.
City inserts
Resource management
During the 1980s The Netherlands was one of the most progressive and recycling-oriented countries in Europe, together with
Germany and Denmark. The recovery strategy is based on research and analysis of the environmental footprint of 29 classes of prod-
ucts and materials. Producers and importers, working through their trade associations, have agreements ('covenants') with the
environment ministry that establishes their responsibility for recovery and safe end-of-life management of their products. National
policy goals regarding recycling and waste minimization are established in the recently updated National Waste Management Plan
2009–2021. The producers finance their obligations via advanced disposal fees (batteries, white and brown goods, automobiles) or
direct producer payments (waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE), paper and packaging). In Rotterdam, the following
waste streams are separately collected though depots, drop-off containers or house-to-house collection, and transported directly,
without transfer, to upgrading/recycling enterprises:
• ferrous materials;
• non-ferrous metals;
• household goods (for reuse);
• 'white goods': kitchen appliances (washers and dryers, refrigerators, freezers, etc.);
• 'brown goods': audio and other appliances (TVs, audio equipment, toasters, coffee-makers, etc.);
• 'grey goods': information communication technology (ICT) equipment (mobile telephones, printers, electronic components of
vehicles, etc.);
• plastic garden furniture;
• used textiles;
• paper/cardboard;
• window glass;
• glass packaging;
• homogeneous debris;
• mixed debris;
• wood (three qualities);
• car tyres;
• coarse garden waste;
• soil/sand;
• selected bulky waste (goes through post-collection
mechanical separation);
• domestic hazardous waste;
• vegetable oils, fat;
• pressure vehicles.
Public health/collection
Collection of waste in San Francisco has a long history, connected to rag-picking and informal recycling that dates back to the clean-
up following the 1906 earthquake and fire. The current private contractor, Recology, has a legal monopoly on collection in San
Francisco. The company is the result of a fusion of two competing firms, both of which dated back to federations of scavengers
(informal recyclers) during the 1930s. Working in partnership with Recology, San Francisco recently passed a mandatory recycling
and composting ordinance requiring all residents and businesses to separate their waste. The Fantastic 3 Program, initiated in 1999
and completed citywide in 2003, uses black, blue and green 240-litre wheeled carts. Generators segregate materials and split-
chamber trucks simultaneously pick up trash and recyclables. Single-chamber side-loading vehicles pick up compostables. Most
streets are swept mechanically at least once per week; several high-traffic areas are swept daily. Department of Environment and
Department of Public Works staff, working with business owners and residents, have developed innovative programmes to encourage
best practices and to implement clean-up projects at events such as street fairs, and to solve seasonal problems.
City inserts
Since it does not have a landfill, San Francisco's discards are hauled 85km to Waste Management's Altamont Landfill and Recology's
Jepson Prairie Compost Facility 96.5km away. Avoiding the expense of hauling and tipping fees at the landfill is a strong driver for
diversion. Garbage rates have been set to strongly encourage recycling or composting. In the commercial sector they are discounted
by up to 75 per cent off the cost of trash. In the residential sector, recycling and composting collection are provided at no additional
cost. This 'pay-as-you-throw' system underpins San Francisco's diversion strategy and drives environmental programmes.
Resource management
The State of California's 50 per cent diversion goal, the city's ambitious 2020 zero waste goal and the stalwart commitment of
elected officials and senior managers drive the focus on diversion, supported by a very strong willingness to participate by residents,
businesses and government agencies. This focus is also supported by a very proactive non-profit sector, tight-knit regional and
statewide professional associations, and robust recycling markets. The average San Franciscan generates 1.7kg of waste per day, of
which 72 per cent is recycled. Three-quarters, 75 per cent, of the remainder could be diverted by existing programmes, and once
this is realized, the city will achieve more than 90 per cent diversion.
Special features
'Zero waste or darn close'. The zero waste
challenge is reflected in solid waste
system support for reducing consumption,
maximizing diversion and encouraging
reuse, repair and green purchasing. It also
involves banning troublesome goods such
as plastic bags and superfluous packaging,
and promoting alternatives such as recycla-
ble or compostable take-out food
packaging and reusable transport packag-
ing. Most of these actions require ongoing
outreach at homes, schools, businesses
and events. In some cases, mandates and
ordinances are required, such as manda-
tory segregation of recyclables and
organics, and construction and demolition
debris. One next major step includes
supporting the passage of statewide legis-
lation that holds manufacturers,
businesses and individuals accountable for the environmental impact of the products that they produce and use.
Public health/collection
In 1997 the city of Sousse decided to privatize part of the waste collection and contracted Seltene to collect some of the waste in
the city. Seltene did such a good job, and was so committed to its work, that it actually inspired the city government to be more
interested in solid waste. Because of this, over the years the percentage collected by Seltene increased, and today Seltene is respon-
sible for the collection of 67 per cent of the waste. The municipality collects 33 per cent and plans to keep at least 25 per cent in
public hands so that it understands the costs, maintains competition, and maintains the human resource and institutional capacity to
operate collection in the future. This decision prevents the municipality from being fully dependent on one company for the collec-
tion of a whole city.
In 2005 the national government decided to open a controlled landfill serving each governorate. The aim was to close all waste
dumps within five years and to create landfills according to global standards for sanitary landfilling. The new state-of-the-art landfill
in the Sousse governorate opened at the end of 2008 and is run by a private company, ECOTI, which is a joint venture of DECO
from Italy and SECOPAD from Tunisia. ANGed monitors the developments at the site and remains responsible.
City inserts
Resource management
Based on the extended producer responsibility (EPR) principle, the
import of plastics for the packaging industry has been taxed and the
income now supports several projects to keep plastics out of the waste
stream. There is a national project called ECOLEF that buys collected
plastics while stimulating entrepreneurship. In Sousse the municipality
also took up the challenge to prevent plastics from entering the waste
stream and set up the project SHAMS. The campaign is very intensive
and includes door-to-door collection of the waste separated at the
houses of about 5000 inhabitants. There is an informal recycling sector
and some members have been hired to work in a project for the collec-
tion and sorting of recyclable wastes, mainly plastics, but also paper,
glass, aluminium and Tetra Packs, within SHAMS. The work of the infor-
mal collectors is not hindered in any way and they can sell their
collected material via intermediaries to the sorting site.
Special features
Producer responsibility, rare in Africa, as well as successful experience
with privatization and the active development of plastics recycling are
interesting features of Sousse. Attention is given towards increased recy-
cling of plastics, via an EPR system called EcoLef. Activities are still in
the pilot project phase. There is also some work on developing compost-
ing of green waste from parks, as well as further source separation
ANGed (2009) Rapport d'activité 2008, Tunisia
RDC Brussels (2008) La gestion des déchets ménagers et assimilés au niveau de la municipalité de Sousse, Brussels, Unpublished
Solid Waste Management in the World's Cities
New York State, US, North America
1100 feet above sea level
Public health/collection
There are various approaches to managing garbage collection in the county. The City of Ithaca and the Village of Cayuga Heights
operate garbage collection, while the villages of Trumansburg and Dryden contract directly with a private-sector service provider. In
the remaining municipalities, individual households arrange for garbage collection with a private-sector service provider and an
unrecorded number choose to bring their own waste and recyclables to the Tompkins County Recycling and Solid Waste Center
(RSWC) in Ithaca. Collected or self-hauled waste can only be disposed of by paying a fee. For collected waste, payment is indicated
by a tag that is attached to the collection container or bag when it is placed at the kerb. All households receive two-weekly kerbside
recycling collection through a county contract with a private-sector service provider.
During the late 1980s, the county selected a landfill site that complied with New York State regulations and began the process of
developing a new landfill. It eventually became clear that the availability of much less expensive private disposal capacity outside of
the county represented a better option. The county had already made a commitment to develop the RSWC that focused on diverting
as much as possible from disposal, which worked well in combination with export.
City inserts
Resource management
When the county's 20-year Solid Waste Management Plan was prepared in 1990, the State of New York required counties to include
a goal of at least 50 per cent diversion from disposal. Tompkins County went further with a plan that called for gradually increasing
goals and a shifting emphasis over the years from disposal to recycling, composting, organized and supported reuse, and prevention.
The county, working in partnership with the private and non-profit sectors, is now diverting 60 per cent from disposal and has iden-
tified a 75 per cent diversion goal for 2015.
Special features
In its commitment to increase diversion, the county introduced a system of pay-as-you-throw in 1989. By law, all waste coming to
the RSWC has to be separated from recyclables and yard waste. Disposing of non-recyclable waste requires payment of a fee; the
recyclables – soon shifting to collection in a single stream – do not have to be paid for. Another special feature is the county's
human resource commitment to promoting the 4Rs: reduce, reuse, recycle, re-buy. Whereas most New York and East Coast counties
have one staff member in the position of recycling coordinator, Tompkins has, in addition to management and operational staff, four
full-time equivalents working on increasing material diversion and recovery.
1990 Tompkins County Solid Waste Management Plan
New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (2008a)
Annual Recyclables and Recovery Facility Report, New York State
Department of Environmental Conservation, NY
New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (2008b)
Annual Transfer Station Report, New York State Department of
Environmental Conservation, NY
New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (2008c)
Household Hazardous Waste Collection and Storage Facility Year-End
Report, New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, NY
New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (2008d)
Planning Unit Recycling Report, New York State Department of
Environmental Conservation, NY
New York State Solid Waste Management Act of 1988
Tompkins County Charter and Code, Chapter 140
Tompkins County Solid Waste Management Division Annual Report (2008)
Solid Waste Management in the World's Cities
Oblast (County) Varna, north-east Bulgaria, Europe
39m above sea level
Public health/collection
Like many post-socialist countries, public health measures resulting in 100 per cent collection coverage in cities were achieved
during the socialist period. The tourist industry also puts pressure on the city for effective waste collection and street sweeping.
Collection was concessionized during the early 1990s and is still operated by private companies, both domestic and joint ventures
with German and other Western European firms. The only problem with collection is that villages are underserved (as they are virtu-
ally everywhere in the Balkans) and have a high degree of informal dumping. In this sense, it is not strictly true that there is 100 per
cent coverage outside of the city limits.
The City of Varna has an active environmental department and many specific goals for sustainable development. The disposal site at
Vaglen in an adjacent municipality was formerly a ravine that was first used in 1973 as an open dump. It has been continuously
upgraded and expanded as the need grew and new technical information became available. It has recently achieved the status of a
sanitary landfill, planned to serve the small region of Varna and two neighbouring communities. Since the harmonization of
Bulgarian legislation with the EU, municipal administrations and mayors of the municipalities have a key role in planning and organiz-
ing the several municipal and construction waste management activities.
City inserts
Resource management
The socialist era national recycling institution,
Phoenix Resource, was privatized and split up
during the late 1990s, and socialist era recy-
cling initiatives now exist only in memory.
There is an active informal sector in Varna,
consisting mostly of ethnic Roma street-pick-
ers who extract wastes from community
containers. Recyclers use push carts, autos or,
occasionally, horse-drawn vehicles for collect-
ing cardboard and metal from businesses and
a range of other materials 'donated' from
households. A national initiative to add poly-
ethylene terephthalate (PET) bottle recycling
to this activity had modest success and
resulted in one PET processor in Varna. But
this activity remains largely separate from the
formal solid waste infrastructure in spite of
EU directives and the preparation of a recy-
cling plan in a project during 2002.
Special features
Varna has an open and transparent policy setting for waste management. All types of non-state actors, including non-governmental
organizations (NGOs), private consultancies, schools, resorts and city twinning projects with cities and regions in The Netherlands
and other Western European countries, participate actively in planning and policy-setting. This, in combination with the concession-
ization of waste collection and disposal services, represents a quite exceptional degree of partnership.
This chapter discusses the three key physical of them as 'triangle 1', the first three main foun-
elements necessary for an integrated sustainable dation stones of an ISWM system, which provide
waste management (ISWM) system. These three the physical basis for 'triangle 2', the governance
elements can be related to the three primary aspects in the following chapter.
drivers (driving forces) for their development, as
outlined in Chapter 2:
1 waste collection, usually driven by a COLLECTION:
commitment of authorities to protect and
improve public health and reduce deaths
and illnesses related to the presence of
waste; Basic issues
2 waste disposal, driven by the need to Together with sanitation as the safe manage-
decrease the adverse environmental ment of human excreta, effective removal and
impacts of solid waste management; and treatment of solid waste is one of the most vital
3 waste prevention, reuse, recycling and urban environmental services. Waste collection
recovery of valuable resources from organic represents both an essential utility function,
wastes, driven by both the resource value together with electricity, gas and clean water,
of waste and by wider considerations of and a necessary part of urban infrastructure and
sustainable resource management. services, alongside housing and transport, educa-
tion and healthcare. In cities, poor solid waste
These considerations are supplemented by the management has a direct impact upon health,
current interest in improved energy efficiency, length of life and the urban environment. This
which is related to the emerging driver of climate matters and it is the basis for the idea that
change. All three of these key elements need to removing solid waste from urban centres is an
be addressed for an ISWM system to work well essential function of the city authorities. Ever
and to work sustainably over time. We can think since the middle of the 19th century, when infec-
Solid Waste Management in the World's Cities
Stagnant water in always, more waste. But providing a good collec-
open drain clogged
by waste provides tion service to the poor as well as the rich is
ideal breeding condi- more than just an equity issue – infectious
tions for mosquitoes
in Nigeria diseases will affect the whole city. Figure 4.1
© Kaine Chinwah shows the global version of this, comparing data
for non-slum and slum households.
Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS)
data shows significant increases in the incidence
of sickness among children living in households
where garbage is dumped or burned in the yard.
Typical examples include twice as high diarrhoea
rates and six times higher prevalence of acute
tious diseases were linked for the first time to respiratory infections, compared to areas where
poor sanitation and uncollected solid waste, waste is collected regularly.1 Searching for food,
municipalities have therefore been responsible cows, pigs, goats and horses eat the organic
for providing solid waste collection services to waste in many countries. This is not without a
their citizens. price: in Mali, cows regularly die if they are not
When solid waste is not removed, it ends up operated on to remove tens of kilos of plastic
somewhere. That 'somewhere' is open spaces, bags accumulating in their stomachs.2
backyards, public parks, alongside roads or path- Uncollected solid waste clogs drains and
ways, and in nearby rivers or lakes. Waste is causes flooding and subsequent spread of water-
burned in a barrel or in a heap. Children, espe- borne diseases. Blocked storm drains and pools of
cially those living in slums, play in it and with it. stagnant water provide breeding and feeding
Poor waste management usually affects grounds for mosquitoes, flies and rodents.
poor people more than their richer neighbours. Collectively, these can cause diarrhoea, malaria,
Often the city centre receives a door-to-door parasitic infections and injuries.
collection several times per week and the peri- The annual floods in Kampala and other
urban or slum areas rely on containers that are East African cities are blamed, at least in part,
emptied so seldom that the area around them on plastic bags, known as 'buveera' in Uganda,
becomes an informal dumpsite, attracting which block sewers and drains. In response to
insects, rats, dogs and grazing animals, and, annual flooding in Mumbai, the State of
Figure 4.1
Collection coverage
for non-slum and
slum households
Source: Global Urban
Observatory (2009);
Demographic and Health
The three integrated sustainable waste management system elements in the reference cities
Box 4.1 The economic cost of
poor waste management
hit the headlines, as in the 2008 example of tion between users and providers. © Quezon City
This Key Sheet illustrates three alternative four loaders. The traffic speed on the road to the
municipal waste collection systems for a typical landfill averages 35km per hour so that the
city with a waste generation of 1000 tonne per return haul from the city boundary to the
day and a distance of 40km from the city bound- disposal site, including discharge time, also takes
ary to a landfill site east of the city. At peak 2.5 hours. Only one 8000kg load is collected per
traffic times there is severe traffic congestion in day, and although it would be possible to collect
the city that restricts the hours of collection. The a second load each day by working extended
city covers an area of around 70 square kilome- hours, the unions will not permit the driver to
tres (this is a composite of actual cases simplified work a ten-hour day and it is not considered
to allow comparison of the three alternative practical by the official concerned to retain the
collection/transfer systems). collection crews during the 2.5 hour waiting
period that the truck is travelling to the disposal
site. Double shift work is also not acceptable to
EXAMPLE 1: EXISTING the municipality.
It can be seen from this that the trucks
have considerable distances to travel through the
COMPACTOR TRUCKS city, adding to the traffic congestion.
DISCHARGING AT THE This system requires 125 trucks (plus
LANDFILL SITE standby vehicles), 125 drivers and 500 loaders.
Solid waste collection will often account for by tions pertaining in his own particular city. In the
far the largest proportion of a city's municipal capital city, the system will often be the same
budget; however, it is perhaps the least throughout the city, catering for the conditions
researched in low- and middle-income countries. found in the commercial areas of the city centre
There has been an almost universal tendency in as well as for low-, medium- and high-income
the past for international consultants working in urban and suburban areas, and also, perhaps,
these countries to assume that the technology peri-urban areas. However, the collection require-
from their own particular industrialized country ments in any large city will vary greatly from
will be appropriate wherever they go. Nothing district to district. Thus, systems developed for
could be further from the truth. The consultants the city centre areas of the industrialized coun-
are often followed by the salesmen for the latest tries are being imposed on the very different
solid waste collection vehicles who see this as an situations in low- and middle-income countries in
opportunity to promote their own particular vehi- both city centre and residential areas in smaller
cles, often with the support of their country's cities with very different conditions.
development aid programme, claiming they have
'state-of-the-art technology' or the 'internation-
ally recognized way of collecting waste as used KEY DIFFERENCES IN
in New York, Hamburg or Tokyo'.
The manager responsible for the cleaning of
the cities, in particular the smaller ones, may
come from a very different discipline, perhaps he The first difference relates to density and volume
is the medical officer of health or the roads engi- of the wastes at the point of collection. These are
neer who is also in charge of the landfill. It is not the same in industrialized and non-industrial-
often difficult for him to resist the advice of the ized countries. This is especially true for waste
consultant and high-pressure salesmen. He may collected after any recyclables or organics have
look to the capital city of his country for advice been removed from the waste stream before
without understanding the very different condi- collection.
Solid Waste Management in the World's Cities
country, the landfill is often quite far away as
disposal has been regionalized, so a truck is
necessary. Many low- and middle-income cities
still have the landfill in the middle of the city.
Handcarts, tricycles and micro-trucks will be
cost effective where primary haul distances are
short. Tractors may be much more cost effective
than trucks for short-haul secondary transport
(typically up to 15km) in a low-income country.
Haul distances will generally be shorter in small
cities than in large ones.
The third important factor is local availabil-
ity of spare parts and servicing facilities. This will
greatly favour local manufacture or adaptation
of appropriate vehicles in low- and middle-income
countries where systems depending on imported
Transfer station at The industrialized country has a waste
Faraskour, Egypt. vehicles and parts will be unsustainable.
The design is density of 150kg per cubic metre and a genera-
Actually, this is a similarity rather than a differ-
suitable for up to tion per capita of 3kg per day, which is a daily
150 tonnes/day ence: no city, whether it is Kunming or New York
capacity volume of 20 litres per capita per day. It will use
or Ouagadougou or Singapore, wants to have to
© Manus Coffey a compaction truck to collect the wastes in order
wait to import parts or get service from a
to get an economic load into the truck.
distance. Low- and middle-income cities need
The low-income country has a waste
local parts and service expertise too! The differ-
density of 500kg per cubic metre and a genera-
ence is that New York or Singapore make this
tion rate of only 0.2kg per capita per day, which
part of their procurement specifications, whereas
is a daily volume of only 0.4 litres per capita per
cities which are getting 'donations' don't feel
day. There is, therefore, a difference of 40 times
that they can be so demanding. But without a
in the waste volume produced by the inhabitants
guarantee that local parts and service are avail-
in the two different situations and there is no
able, a donation may prove more expensive than
logical reason to use the costly compactor trucks
buying it locally.
in cities where the waste is already as dense as it
Something else to consider is road and street
will be after compaction in the earlier situation.
conditions and axle load limits. In some countries,
Thus, the capital-intensive system that may be
vehicles axle loads of up to 12,000kg are
cost effective in an industrialized country will be
allowed; but in other countries only 8000kg are
unaffordable in low- or middle-income countries
permitted on urban roads. These regulations are
where labour is available and costs are low, but
seldom adhered to. A significant, although
bank loans are not available to support the
hidden, cost factor of heavy high-tech vehicles
purchase of expensive trucks.
will be the damage to water and sewer pipes
The second difference relates to the
under the roads and road maintenance costs due
distances which the wastes have to be transported
to excessive axle loads.
during and after collection. In an industrialized
The three integrated sustainable waste management system elements in the reference cities
A recent trend, which started in China and
spread to Vietnam, Egypt and now Nicaragua is
to use small transfer stations located close to
where the wastes are generated that facilitate
very low-cost primary collection systems. In a
typical system, handcarts will be used within a
short radius of the transfer station, tricycles will
be effective within a wider radius, and three-
wheeled or four-wheeled micro-trucks within an
even wider radius.
The small transfer station can enable the
micro-privatization of the labour-intensive transfer and disposal services, which require Small Suzuki trucks
for primary
primary collection. Primary collection can be access to capital and which are beyond the collection in narrow
contracted or franchised to micro- and small resources of the small primary contractor. In streets, designed for
high tilting direct
enterprises (MSEs), community-based organiza- this way, the capital requirements will be greatly into larger vehicles
tions (CBOs), non-governmental organizations reduced and municipal management and finan- for secondary
(NGOs), and even down to individual collectors or cial resources used effectively.
© Manus Coffey
family groups with a handcart, tricycle or micro- A weighing system at the transfer station
truck who have a contract for a specific can be used to monitor the performance of the
collection route. This may be a franchise opera- primary collectors, as well as to control the
tion where the collector is paid by fees which he weight in the transfer containers in order to
collects directly from each household that he ensure that the transport vehicles carry full
services, thus avoiding the costs to the munici- loads without overloading, thus maximizing the
pality of collecting the refuse charges. The transfer vehicle efficiency.
collector may supplement his income by selling With this system, all wastes coming into
recyclable materials, which he collects from his the transfer station are fresh and no wastes
area, to a recycler located alongside the transfer remain in the transfer station after transfer has
station. been completed. Thus, the whole transfer station
The municipality then has only a monitor- can be washed down at the end of each day with
ing role over the collection and can concentrate a high-pressure hose so that there are no odour,
its resources on the efficient operation of the rodent or insect problems.
Solid Waste Management in the World's Cities
countries on waste collection rates in urban
Country Year Average (%) Minimum (%) Maximum (%)
Colombia 2005 97.2 89.0 100.0
areas. Collection coverage – percentage of house-
Dominica 2002 83.6 78.2 85.8 holds receiving services (from either formal and
Bolivia 2004 79.9 67.9 84.8
informal, public and private providers) – varies
Peru 1991 70.8 59.1 85.6
Nicaragua 2001 64.7 56.1 80.8 widely, from 100 to less than 10 per cent.
Guatemala 1998 56.2 42.9 89.5
In the reference cities, reported collection
Egypt 2005 86.6 40.8 96.4
Senegal 1997 62.6 34.3 85.9 coverage rates range from 100 to 45 per cent of
Ghana 2003 39.6 30.1 64.4 the city population. Waste collection services are
Ethiopia 2005 39.0 19.6 69.6
Kenya 2003 28.5 5.6 57.7
not always evenly distributed throughout a city.
Benin 2001 27.3 12.4 47.4 While the city business district of Nairobi, Kenya,
enjoys reasonably good services, and private
collectors serve many housing estates, other
Table 4.1 ■ Keeping the cities clean
areas are underserved. The difference is even
Waste collection Collection coverage (i.e. the extent to which
coverage in urban more pronounced in cities such as Delhi and
areas (percentage) collection services reach households) is consid-
Bengaluru, India, where around 90 per cent of
in selected Latin ered to be the most basic indicator of a solid
American and citizens receive good services, but some slum
African countries6 waste system's performance. There are major
areas receive no services at all.
Source: Global Urban cities in all continents that have had formal
Observatory (GUO) 2009; The situation is similar in rural areas
data compiled from collection services in place for a century or more.
national Demographic and
within official administrative city borders. These
For example, The Netherlands Association of
Health Surveys rural areas receive fewer services than the urban
Municipal Waste Service Providers recently cele-
Table 4.2 area: Cañete, Peru, reports that most villages are
brated its 100th anniversary. Yet, it is also
Average collection without services; in Varna, Bulgaria, the 100 per
coverage in the common that half the urban solid waste remains
cent coverage ends at the city borders and the
reference cities, in uncollected and half the city population un-
ranked order from city's five villages are each served with a single
100 per cent served.
container that is collected once per month, if at
Note: Figures in italic are Table 4.1 provides data from UN-Habitat's
estimates. Belo Horizonte: all.
70% of slum populated was Global Urban Observatory, based on
There are a number of things that collec-
covered in 2008. Delhi: 75% Demographic and Health Surveys in 12 selected
including slums, based on tion coverage can tell us. Collection coverage
weighted average.
tends to follow gross domestic product (GDP) – it
City Average collection coverage Rank is clearly higher in economically developed coun-
Adelaide, Australia 100% 1 tries. Adelaide, Australia, has a 100 per cent
Curepipe, Republic of Mauritius 100% 2
Kumming, China 100% 3
waste collection coverage rate, with a consistent
Rotterdam, Netherlands 100% 4 high standard of services regardless of the socio-
San Francisco, USA 100% 5
economic status of the area. Similarly, San
Tompkins County, USA 100% 6
Varna, Bulgaria 100% 7 Francisco, US, and Rotterdam, The Netherlands,
Quezon City, Philippines 99% 8 provide services to all their citizens; but not all
Sousse, Tunesia 99% 9
Belo Horizonte, Brazil 95% 10 13 sub-districts in Rotterdam score equally on
Delhi, India 90% 11 cleanliness.
Managua, Nicaragua 82% 12
Canete, Peru 73% 13
The coverage rate is also high in cities
Bengaluru, India 70% 14 where authorities are concerned about the city
Nairobi, Kenya 65% 15
image – for example, in preparation for a large
Moshi, Tanzania 61% 16
Bamako, Mali 57% 17 international event happening in the city. The
Ghorahi, Nepal 46% 18
International Horticultural Exhibition held in
Dhaka, Bangladesh 55% 19
Lusaka, Zambia 45% 20 1999 in Kunming, Yunnan Province, the People's
Average 82% Republic of China, contributed to the fact that
Median 93%
waste collection services are now provided to
The three integrated sustainable waste management system elements in the reference cities
100 per cent of its urban population. As Delhi is
Box 4.2 Importance of waste for the Silicon Valley of India
preparing to host the 2010 Commonwealth
During the 1990s, Bengaluru, India, was growing rapidly with its numerous information tech-
Games, activities are being intensified to improve
nology (IT) businesses and the city corporation was not able to deal adequately with the
the image of the city. In some cases, the meas- growing quantities of the city's solid waste. As the situation became acute during the early
ures taken did not have long-lasting effect, as in 2000s, a group of prominent citizens and IT industry leaders took an initiative to improve
2002, when Mali hosted the Coupe d'Afrique de cleanliness. Working with the Bangalore Municipal Corporation (BMP) – the municipality –
they formed the Bengaluru Agenda Task Force (BATF). As one of its main activities, the task
Nations (CAN) football championship. Waste
force engaged in a strategic planning process for solid waste. It initiated collection and
collection services are often improved upon in transportation through public private partnership and later followed with processing and
response to citizens' and political concerns about disposal. Once its work was done, the BATF was disbanded and the products of its activi-
the investment climate or image, as was the case ties were transferred to operational divisions in the BMP. The plan that it produced still
informs the decision-making process and the solid waste management system in Bengaluru.
in Bengaluru.
High waste collection coverage is closely
related to good governance since it demonstrates zens, in part because they do not wish to pay. In
the commitment of city authorities to keep the Lusaka, more than 30 per cent have collection of
city clean and healthy. Belo Horizonte, Brazil, waste through informal service providers who
and Quezon City, the Philippines, serve more are not registered (and therefore do not use the
than 90 per cent of all their citizens. The current controlled disposal facility).
solid waste management system in Belo Frequency of collection is often seen as a
Horizonte is the product of a gradual learning measure of good practice; but this is a complex
process in urban and environment management issue relating to climate, socio-economic prefer-
initiated a century ago. In Quezon City, solid ences, operational efficiency and the degree of
waste management came together as a compre- source separation, as the example from Byala,
hensive programme within the mayor's vision to Bulgaria, shows (see Box 4.3).
create a 'quality community' for city residents. Many Dutch cities collect mixed waste only
Waste collection coverage does not exceed once every two weeks, alternating with source-
60 per cent in Dhaka, Bangladesh, where the separated organics. While cities in high-income
city corporation cannot cope with an ever- countries often find that once per week is
increasing urban population of this already large enough, low- and middle-income countries –
city and the accompanying growing amounts of particularly in the tropics – are convinced that
waste. once per day is necessary. Daily collection may
Bamako, Mali, as the fastest-growing be necessary and justified in your local circum-
African city, has a low rate of less than 60 per
cent due to a generally low income level and Box 4.3 Collecting air in Byala, Bulgaria7
consequent financial problems of a decentralized In 2002, Byala, Bulgaria, was a sleepy Black Sea fishing town with a few modest summer
system based on community-based organizations resorts and small hotels. Together with five extremely rural villages, it had a winter popula-
(CBOs) and small- and medium-sized enterprises tion of less than 2500. The economic transition was accelerating and fuel prices were rising
rapidly. The cleansing department was using up its yearly fuel budget in the first four
months of the year.
Other cities in the poorest, or least devel- In the process of updating its solid waste plan, Byala invited an international
oped, countries with low waste collection rates consultant to help with cost reduction. During a visit in the off-season month of November,
include small cities such as Ghorahi, Nepal, and the consultant and staff conducted a field audit of the relationship between waste gener-
ated and frequency of collection. It turned out that 90 per cent of the 40 litre containers
Moshi, Tanzania, where local authorities strug-
were less than 20 per cent full when they were collected three times a week.
gle to finance the system, as citizens are either Based on a simple calculation, the cleansing company was able to reduce off-season
not charged at all (Ghorahi) or do not see the collection from three times per week to once per month for nine months of the year. This
need to pay for the inadequate services (Moshi). allowed the department to cover its fuel needs with the existing budget during the entire
year, including the tourist season. The consultant is still welcomed in Byala as 'that girl who
Interestingly, in cases such as Lusaka, Zambia,
came from abroad to ask us why we were collecting empty containers'.
services are offered but not accepted by all citi-
Solid Waste Management in the World's Cities
outstanding 'clean and green' cities. In Japan,
Box 4.4 Beijing Spring Festival8
street cleaning is a regular activity, and city
In Beijing, a week before the Spring Festival in February 2007, in preparation for the 29th
authorities invite their residents to participate at
Olympic Games in 2008, about 100,000 residents took their brooms outdoors on a
Saturday for a 'Clean City' drive to mark traditional Chinese Little New Year. least once a month. In the highly urbanized The
Netherlands, many householders still regularly
sweep and even wash the sidewalks in front of
stances; but the question should be asked their houses.
whether this is really the case. Closely monitor- The importance of recognition, image and
ing the performance of the system will answer municipal pride in keeping streets clear cannot
this question better than some global bench- be underestimated. Moshi is very proud of its
mark. title of the cleanest city in Tanzania; Adelaide is
Municipal cleansing services – in other proud of its high recycling rate; Tompkins County
words, street sweeping – are intimately linked to has received awards for its high diversion. The
waste collection. Many cities keep streets clean opposite is also true: when a dirty city becomes a
in the central business district but leave other political issue, or when an international event is
areas unattended, which discourages visitors and scheduled, the impossible becomes possible. Delhi
investors. It has even been suggested that the now cleans up for the Commonwealth Games;
visual cleanliness of the whole city can be used as Bamako worked hard on cleanliness when the
a surrogate performance measure for city gover- World Championship Football was held there
nance. several years ago; Beijing cleaned up streets
In the Philippines and Indonesia, cities (and reduced air pollution) for the 2008
annually organize a street cleaning competition Olympics.
among their communities to encourage active So what constitutes a good collection serv-
participation of their local residents, while ice? The answer is different in different places,
national environmental agencies grant awards to but results talk. The collection service that
serves all areas of the city on a regular basis,
Box 4.5 Principles of a good collection service9
keeps streets clean and drains clear, hires collec-
If people are to trust a waste management system, it needs to be regular, reliable, user tors in a safe working environment for a living
friendly and affordable. It also needs to match user expectations and develop with them
wage, and meets the needs of the users comes
over time. A checklist of these principles has been developed in the UK in response to the
results of an extensive customer survey. The benchmark was launched in autumn 2009. All pretty close to the ideal.
local authorities are being invited to make the following commitment:
■ Improving the cost-effectiveness of
'We are committed to providing waste and recycling services that are good value primary and secondary services
for money and which meet the needs of our residents. In most cities, regardless of size, waste collection
This means that we will: services developed as a means of protecting
public health in response to increasing urbaniza-
• Explain clearly what services you can expect to receive.
tion. Where municipal authorities could not cope,
• Provide regular collections.
• Provide a reliable collection service. it got worse before it got better, creating crises
• Consider any special requests that individual households may have. that were drivers for political action. In some
• Design our services and carry out collections in a way that doesn't cases it was local authorities who took up the
produce litter.
challenge, such as occurred in Belo Horizonte,
• Collect as many materials for recycling as we can and explain to you
what happens to them. Kunming or Moshi; in some instances local
• Explain clearly what our service rules are and the reasons for them. authorities were strongly supported or even
• Tell you in good time if we have to make changes to your services, even pushed by donors, such as in Dhaka, Managua
and Lusaka. In some places, non-governmental
• Respond to complaints that we receive about our services.
• Tell all our residents about this commitment to collecting waste.' organizations (NGOs) and individuals, so-called
'champions', took the initiative. Such an initia-
The three integrated sustainable waste management system elements in the reference cities
Box 4.6 Taking waste matters into their own hands
Nairobi, another of the reference cities, private which it is tipped directly into a larger Percentage of fleet
working in the
collection companies and CBOs compete for transfer container (or tipping vehicle) for reference cities.
collection zones in private–private arrange- direct transport to disposal without ever While it is no surprise
being tipped onto the ground and loaded by that cities in Australasia,
ments, which the Nairobi City Council began to Europe and North
regulate in 2006 (city presentations and profiles hand. America report 100 per
3 Ensure coordination of the primary and cent, they are not
of Moshi, Nairobi, Belo Horizonte). alone. Gorahi, Quezon,
Secondary collection, the removal of waste secondary collection services in order to Belo Horizonte and
ensure that the overall system works effec- Managua also achieve
from communal collection or transfer points, is this, and Kunming,
more often organized by the municipality or its tively and reduces the risk of illegal Bengaluru and Curepipe
disposal by the primary collectors. come close to it.
contractors. There are at least three key princi-
Notes: NA = not available;
ples of success – one technical and two NR = not reported; N =
organizational: In relation to number 1, above, it is useful to look no;Y = yes.
Figures in italic are esti-
at the status of the fleet of collection vehicles in mates. Working
the reference cities. Most of the cities have both fleet/facilities data:
1 Use collection vehicles and transfer Bengaluru – 85% municipal
systems appropriate to the local waste motorized and non-motorized transport. Of the fleet, 100% private fleet;
Lusaka – 100% municipal
characteristics, street and traffic condi- fleet and solid waste facilities, more than 85 per fleet, 70–89% fleet.
tions, and distances between collection and cent are reported to be available for work, but
disposal points. not all of them are operational. The percentage
2 Keep costs down by limiting multiple of capital equipment which is actually opera-
manual handling of the waste. The ideal is tional is in some cities as much as 100 per cent
for waste to be collected from household and in others as little as 22.5 per cent.
Solid Waste Management in the World's Cities
Box 4.9 Swatchh Mitra in Bengaluru
organizations tend to be overworked and under- separation at the household level. This translates
paid, and they suffer from a low status of their to contaminated materials, which in turn result
work: there is a tendency to assume that anyone either in high post-collection sorting costs (the
who does 'dirty work' is somehow a 'dirty situation in Rotterdam), or low market value
person'.14 Under such circumstances, contact when the materials are marketed. Both of these
with users may seem unwelcome, or a luxury. In impacts reduce the economic effectiveness of the
the midst of this stress, providers and their staff recycling system and make it vulnerable to politi-
may forget why they are working and for whom. cal critique or elimination. High degrees of
A working ISWM collection system thus separation reduce this contamination and
depends on a high degree of cooperation and increase the market value of the materials. These
trust between users and providers, so any trade-offs are important to consider in the design
attempt to improve and modernize solid waste of recycling programmes.
services requires that both users and providers
change habitual attitudes and learn new behav-
Box 4.11 Public engagement for
iours. In order for this process of innovation and enhanced recycling in the UK
mutual adaptation to work smoothly and effec-
Situated on England's south coast, Rother is a typically British
tively, there is a need for clear and continued municipality. In 2007, it launched a kerbside recycling service to
communication, and the information channels around 35,000 homes, rolling out across the entire district over
need to be maintained. one month. A local recycling brand was developed and supported
by a campaign, carefully choreographed to deliver the right infor-
A specific example of this is related to
mation, in the right way at the right time.
building recycling programmes, the technical The result was a rapid jump in recycling from 16 to 38
success of which is dependent on users changing per cent within four months of introducing the new service,
their behaviour and following the rules for recy- exceeding their 2010 target of 32 per cent recycling almost
immediately. By the early summer of 2009, that had increased to
cling. When users understand the instructions
nearly 50 per cent.
and separate materials as requested by the
Solid Waste Management in the World's Cities
Box 4.12 Dandora among the dirty 30
The Nairobi, Kenya, dumpsite of Dandora was included in the list
TREATMENT AND of the world's 30 most polluted places in a survey by the
DISPOSAL: FRONT Blacksmith Institute in 2007. Originally located outside the city, it
is now surrounded by heavily populated low-income estates, such
LINES OF as Dandora, Korogocho, Baba Dogo and Huruma, thus affecting
ENVIRONMENTAL the health of large number of residents of these ever-expanding
Basic issues Since the emergence of the environmental
Removal of waste from houses and city streets movement in the 1960s, there is much broader
was the main priority of cities' waste manage- understanding of the health and environmental
ment systems for nearly a century, with little or risks of open dumping and burning, which pollute
no attention to what was then done with it. The air and water resources, contaminate soils, and
edge of town was usually far enough away, and pose health risks to those living near such uncon-
better still if there was a swamp to be filled. trolled sites.
Dumping waste into rivers or the sea was an In countries where there is a low level of
acceptable strategy, where available. Finding its control and a lack of infrastructure, hazardous
way into nature, waste enters the food chain and wastes from hospitals and industry often become
adversely affects ecosystems. The Great Pacific mixed with the municipal or household wastes.
Garbage Patch, a vortex of estimated 3.5 million This dramatically increases the health and envi-
tonnes of plastic and other waste, covering an ronmental impacts from uncontrolled disposal;
area the size of France or larger, is swirling in uncontrolled hazardous waste dumpsites were,
the north Pacific, causing 'birds and mammals to indeed, a key driver behind 1970s waste legisla-
die of starvation and dehydration with bellies full tion in developed countries, and drums of
of plastics; where fish are ingesting toxins at hazardous waste illegally exported to Western
such a rate that soon they will no longer be safe Africa – or dumped overboard in the Atlantic
to eat'.15 Ocean before even reaching the destination –
A typical controlled
dump in South
America – only the
birds differ per
© Jeroen IJgosse
The three integrated sustainable waste management system elements in the reference cities
during the 1980s prompted the development of
Box 4.13 A crisis stimulates change
the Basel Convention, which regulates trans-
In many countries, a crisis and the political debate that it
boundary movements of hazardous wastes.
prompted were responsible for kick-starting the modernization
The environmental impacts of uncontrolled process, which had been under way for years, but moving very
dumping are most acutely felt at the local level. slowly.
Dumpsites are usually located in or adjacent to In 1971, drums of cyanide waste were dumped at an
abandoned brick kiln near Nuneaton, UK, leading to a huge
poorer communities, where the land costs are
public outcry. The ensuing upheaval, along with press coverage of
lower, and it is politically and socially easier to waste disposal drivers taking bribes to dump hazardous waste
locate and continue to use these facilities. illegally and a report by the Royal Commission on Environmental
In terms of health impacts, the informal- Pollution on toxic wastes provided a catalyst for the first ever
legislation to control hazardous waste. The consequent Deposit
and formal-sector workers on waste disposal
of Poisonous Waste Act 1972 was drafted in only ten days and
sites are on the front line – they are exposed to passed through parliament within a month.16
dangerous substances and face significant health In a similar way, the collapse of the Payatas dumpsite in
risks. Waste disposal sites can attract dogs and Quezon City, the Philippines, in 2000, the associated loss of life of
200 waste-pickers, and the outrage in the press and media gave a
rats, and sometimes also cows, goats and pigs,
big impetus to the process of creating a national waste manage-
and these can be a mechanism for spreading ment law, and this event is linked to the passage of Republic Law
disease as well. 9003, the Ecological Waste Management Act.
Current environmental policy is generally
founded on the principles of the 'waste manage-
step was only taken during the 1970s or 1980s.
ment hierarchy'. The hierarchy is represented in
Official statistics for 1990 show that 6 of the
many different ways; however, the general prin-
then 12 member states of the European Union
ciple is to move waste management 'up the
(EU) were still using uncontrolled landfills, with
hierarchy', towards reduce, reuse, recycle (the
3 countries disposing of more than half their
'3Rs') nearer the 'top', diverting waste away
municipal solid waste by this route.17
from disposal, which is situated at the 'bottom'.
The Japanese Ministry of Environment,
The version of the hierarchy in Figure 4.2 empha-
working with the United Nations Regional
sizes that a necessary first step is to get on the
Development Commission for Asia, is attempting
hierarchy in the first place by phasing out uncon-
to move the policy emphasis up the hierarchy in
trolled disposal in the form of open dumping.
12 low- and middle-income Asian countries.
Even in many developed countries, this first
Figure 4.2
Waste management
Source: Wilson et al (2001)
Solid Waste Management in the World's Cities
Choudhury R. C. Mohanty (UNCRD)
City GDP, per capita, Disposed at simple Disposed at dumped Generated to Lost or illegally
country state-of-the-art controlled landfills disposal sites controlled disposal dumped
(US$) (tonnes per year) (tonnes per year) (including incineration) (tonnes per year)
(UNDP, 2007) of total generated (%)
Adelaide 39,066 341,691 0 46% 0
Bamako 6855 0 0 0% 198,757
Belo Horizonte 1046 1,136,246 0 88% 1405
Bengaluru 556 1,364,188 350,000 65% 209,875
Canete 3846 0 8490 0% 2040
Curepipe 5383 23,764 0 100% 0
Delhi 1046 1,810,035 0 71% 611,317
Table 4.5 Dhaka 431 511,000 0 44% 509,248
Ghorahi 367 2200 0 67% 394
Waste disposal in
Kunming 2432 1,121,463 0 88% 0
the reference cities.
Lusaka 953 77,298 0 26% 112,918
The 'controlled disposal Managua 1022 0 376,878 90% 10,950
rate' is more or less a Moshi 400 0 46,538 0% 6205
parabolic function that
Nairobi 645 22,776 370,110 3% 262,800
goes up as GDP goes
Quezon City 1639 450,020 0 61% 9221
from low to high, then
Rotterdam 46,750 245 0 70% 0
peaks, then drops as
San Francisco 45,592 142,330 0 28% 0
cities modernize and
Sousse 3425 64,000 0 94% 0
put increasing emphasis
Tompkins County 45,592 22,507 0 39% 0
on diverting materials
from disposal. Varna 5163 74,378 0 54% 610
Average 52%
Note: ? = data uncertain. Median 58%
Figures in italic are
The three integrated sustainable waste management system elements in the reference cities
have succeeded in attracting capital financing delayed by a lack of clear financing for transfer
for disposal from multilateral development banks and disposal operating costs, in spite of the avail-
or private investors, either domestic or foreign. ability of capital investment support. In a sense,
Other cities are on the way to environmen- the delay in developing this landfill is an indica-
tally sound waste disposal due to a political tor of financial sustainability because until
commitment to clean cities and quality of urban operating funds are ensured, the risks are high to
living, as is the case in Quezon City, the build and open it.
Philippines, Ghorahi, Nepal, and Belo Horizonte, Some of the approaches and solutions being
Brazil. Several of the reference cities have adopted in the cities are discussed here:
markedly improved – or are in the process of
improving – their former waste dumpsites • phasing out or upgrading open dumps;
through strong donor support, typically in the • adapting technologies to local conditions;
form of bilateral cooperation. These cities and • reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions
donors include: through gas capture or methane avoidance.
Burning dumped
waste next to a
ravine, with houses
in the background,
Catia la Mar,
© Jeroen IJgosse
Solid Waste Management in the World's Cities
• Control waste dumping (i.e. allocate and
control where loads are dumped and stop
end-tipping – the pushing of waste over an
extended slope, where the waste is un-
compacted and can burn).
• Spread the waste in layers of a maximum
1m and compact as best possible with the
machinery available.
• Extinguish fires in other parts of the dump-
site by exposing smouldering areas and
smothering them with soil (no water).
• Develop a draining system that prevents
runoff water from entering the waste body.
• Create an operating plan (as simple as
Waste dump in The main steps in progressive rehabilitation are
Managua, Nicaragua possible) that progressively levels areas of
as follows:
© Jeroen IJgosse the landfill (always using a single working
phase and some degree of compaction).
• Recruit a facility manager responsible for
• Cover deposited waste as best possible with
managing the facility. The manager must
incoming soil, rubble or quenched ash.
understand the rehabilitation procedure,
Vegetate if possible.
and must be able to handle all the stresses
• Most important is to negotiate with the
associated with the operation and dealing
waste-pickers throughout the process. They
with waste-pickers.
will be most affected by the proposed reha-
• With the assistance of the landfill manager,
bilitation and are able to cause major
initiate a public information and participa-
problems on site if they feel that their liveli-
tion exercise to inform the public of the
hood is threatened. Consequently, they
proposed dumpsite rehabilitation. This must
must be made part of the solution. This is
include the waste-pickers and must be
achieved by:
ongoing throughout the rehabilitation
– recognizing the fact that they are on
site and are there to stay;
• Provide the requisite resources (e.g. the
– formalizing the right for the regular
people required for the above), as well as
or career waste-pickers to operate on
the machinery to accomplish the following.
site in a controlled manner;
• Establish control over vehicle access to the
– developing a mutually acceptable
dumpsite (i.e. through only one access
working relationship that is facili-
tated through negotiation between
• Establish a single working face in an area
the landfill manager and the recog-
of the dumpsite that is not burning and
nized leader of the scavenger
establish a road suitable for traffic leading
to it.
The three integrated sustainable waste management system elements in the reference cities
Even though it is a good governance issue, ous engineered controls for environmental pollu-
inclusivity can have a direct impact upon the tion prevention. This is reflected in high
technical performance of a waste disposal site. investment and operating costs. Operating costs
This point is reinforced by the example of Jam for landfills range between 10 and 50 Euros per
Chakro landfill in Karachi, Pakistan, which was tonne of municipal waste. Incineration of munici-
built with donor funds in 1996. The site never pal non-hazardous waste costs between 80 and
really operated as a sanitary landfill and 200 Euros per tonne, partially due to very high
reverted to become an open dump, primarily due investment costs, in the order of 100 million
to failure to consult and take account of informal Euros for a modern incinerator that meets the
waste-pickers.20 A similar situation is evolving in strict emission standards of the European Union.
Sousse, Tunisia, one of the reference cities, which All of this poses a challenge for cities in
recently closed its dump and opened a new land- low- and middle-income countries, many of which
fill. are already struggling to replace their open dump
Moving from open dumping to controlled with a better-performing controlled waste
disposal has many advantages for other parts of disposal facility. Upgrading may appear to be an
an ISWM system: impossible and even hopeless undertaking, partic-
ularly if 'Western' legislation has been copied,
• Having managed and staffed gate controls requiring the same advanced technology features
enables the segregation of hazardous and as those applied in, for example, Germany or
non-hazardous waste, both through inter- Switzerland. An additional problem is that
vention of the staff and through the European donors generally require all new facili-
potential for direction of any difficult-to- ties that they support to immediately meet
manage wastes admitted to a remote part current EU emission standards, which took 40
of the site. This may cost nothing in finan- years to evolve. This leaves no room for phased
cial terms but may be the single most development and usually discourages cities in
important measure to reduce pollution developing countries from undertaking any steps
potential of the disposal site and improve at all. Expecting poor countries to switch imme-
occupational safety of workers and waste- diately can act as a barrier to working on the
pickers at the site. improvement at all. When the investment, operat-
• Investing small amounts of money in a reason- ing and maintenance costs of new facilities are
able road to the site will save much in terms prohibitively high, this tends to result in continu-
of collection and transfer vehicle mainte- ing the status quo of open dumping, even after 40
nance and will prolong vehicles' useful life. years of focus on environmental protection.
• Diverting waste from disposal through materi- Sometimes, international equipment suppli-
als recycling and valorization of organic ers, often with funds from their home country,
waste, as discussed further in 'Resource offer cities in other parts of the world subsidized
management: Valorizing recyclables and equipment, which is combined with overoptimistic
organic materials and conserving revenue projections – for example, high energy
resources', will prolong the useful life of the revenues, low operational costs, great market
disposal site as well as that of collection prices for recyclables, or dream-like technical
vehicles that haul the waste to disposal. promises. An extreme example is the incinerator
that was marketed to a Nairobi private waste
■ Adapting technologies to local conditions
collector by a Swedish company in the 1990s,
A large proportion of the costs of developing
with the 'guarantee' that it would burn garbage
waste treatment and disposal infrastructure in
and turn it into hundreds of litres of clean drink-
high-income countries – and those with advanced
ing water.21 More plausible claims of energy from
modernization processes – is now spent on vari-
Solid Waste Management in the World's Cities
mon size, which were not available locally, so
Box 4.15 Failed treatment facilities in India22
that when the tyres needed replacing, the vehi-
In 1984, the Municipal Corporation of Delhi, India, built an incinerator to process 300
cles could no longer be used.24 Inappropriate
tonnes per day of solid waste and produce 3MW of power, with technical assistance from
Denmark, at a cost of around US$3.5 million. The plant was designed for segregated waste donations and investments are not only a waste
as input, which was not practised by the households or promoted by the municipality. The of resources, they may also accrue debt to
plant had to be closed down within a week of its opening as the waste had a very low heat- national governments or may break a solid waste
ing value and a high percentage of inert materials.
organization by loading it up with debt.
In 2003, Lucknow Municipal Corporation built an anaerobic digestion plant, as a
5MW waste-to-energy project, to process 500 to 600 tonnes of municipal waste per day at Technologies developed in the industrialized
a cost of US$18 million. Private companies from Austria and Singapore provided the techni- countries are designed for their own local circum-
cal inputs, while Indian firms supplied the human resources for execution on a stances, characterized by high labour costs, high
build–own–operate (BOO) basis. The plant was not able to operate even for a single day to
technical capacities and waste rich in packaging
its full capacity due to the high level of inert materials in the waste and was closed down.
The operational difficulties and the ultimate failure were mainly due to the difference materials. An example of such technologies
between the design assumptions that were based on European waste and waste manage- includes collection systems based on mechanical
ment practices, and the actual field scenario in India. compaction during collection. These 'high-tech'
Both facilities are landmarks to the failure of imported waste-to-energy technolo-
approaches are associated with high investment
gies in India.
costs, and depend on skilled maintenance person-
nel and expensive spare parts to keep them
waste merit close examination because there are operational and to maintain compliance with the
frequent hidden costs for supplementary fuel, pertinent environmental standards. This is true
maintenance or parts. Looking back to the for state-of-the-art compaction collection vehicles
Bamako example, one can say that if your city or and sanitary landfills; it tends to be even truer for
your private operator can't manage to feed the waste-to-energy incinerators, vehicles with
donkeys, you won't be able to afford fuel for a advanced electronic control systems, and the
tractor either. A donation of physical infrastruc- many new processing technologies on the market.
ture does not change the financial and A better approach is the other way around,
institutional conditions of your city; only focused when the characteristics of the waste stream
modernization efforts, capacity strengthening and and a good understanding of local conditions
political commitment can do that. form the basis for choosing management strate-
There are examples in several continents of gies and technologies. The high moisture and
donor-funded incinerators that have never oper- organic content that make waste in low- and
ated, but have sat for years as a kind of dinosaur middle-income countries difficult to burn also
in the landscape.23 There are sanitary landfills make it an ideal material for composting, anaero-
built to meet EU environmental standards, which bic digestion, animal feed or direct application to
revert to being operated as an open dump the land. Specific socio-economic, demographic
because energy costs of the leachate collection and cultural circumstances are extremely impor-
system or fuel costs of operations are too high. tant: in Africa where houses or household
Another example is the fleet of donor-provided compounds often have dirt floors, street sweep-
collection vehicles, fitted with tyres of an uncom- ings add such a volume of inert materials that
direct land application may be more feasible –
Box 4.16 Understanding the function of technology and more cost effective – than composting. The
raw waste benefits agriculture without incurring
In Ghorahi, Nepal, based on the investigation by the Department of Mines and Geology,
which was paid by the municipality, a suitable site was identified where thick natural clay the cost of managed composting.25
deposits provided the necessary level of environmental protection, probably better than Clearly, simply importing European,
any engineered liner could do. Leachate collection and removal system was installed, as well American or Japanese disposal or incineration
a natural system for its treatment. At a safe distance from human settlements, the site
technologies to a low- or middle-income country,
incorporates a buffer zone consisting of forests and gardens.
without considering how they will work under
The three integrated sustainable waste management system elements in the reference cities
local conditions, can be a recipe for environmen-
Box 4.17 Beware the 'magic solution' salesman
tal and economic disaster. Waste composition is
The Western market for novel waste treatment technologies is proving to be limited, and
of paramount importance. The developing world
salesmen, both legitimate and unscrupulous, often target developing and transitional coun-
is littered by donor-funded Western incinerators try cities desperate to find an easy answer to a difficult problem. A key message of this
that have never worked or require supplemen- Global Report, however, is that there is no 'magic bullet'. The checklist below provides
tary fuel to burn waste because they had been some questions to ask such salesmen and yourself in order to help you evaluate if their
technology really is appropriate for your city:
designed and developed for Western European or
North American waste – waste with less mois- • Is this technology suitable for your waste (e.g. is the heating value of your waste
ture and more packaging waste such as plastic high enough to burn without support fuel)?
and paper than present in developing countries' • Is the technology being proposed proven elsewhere? If yes, what documentation is
there to prove this (i.e. do you wish to be a 'guinea pig' for a new technology)?
municipal waste.
• Would the contract proposed require you to meet a specified minimum tonnage of
One way to approach this challenge is waste? Is this realistic in your current situation? Would it discourage the city's recy-
through understanding the properties and func- cling efforts in the future?
tions of the technology currently applied in • Does the technology meet international emission standards (this is essential for
waste-to-energy facilities in order to ensure that air emissions, including carcino-
developed countries, instead of copying their
gens such as dioxins, do not pose a risk to your citizens)?
technical specifications. This is particularly rele- • Are the costs both realistic and affordable? Are local markets available for the heat
vant for landfills. Part of landfill technology is or other products from the facility? If yes, how do you know? If not, are there plans
the aim of reducing emissions to groundwater via to develop the markets? Who will finance market development?
• Can the plant be run and maintained locally, using local labour and local spare parts?
leachate. But if a site is available with 20m of
• Has a suitable site been identified? Which criteria have been used to assess suitabil-
naturally consolidated clay, it is better in terms ity? Will the developer pay for full and independent environmental and social impact
of environmental protection of any groundwater assessments to international standards?
underneath than any engineered liner. • Does your country have the institutional capacity to permit and regulate facility
In addition, various tools have become
• Have you sought independent advice, perhaps at your local university, before signing
available to assess a possible impact of individual any contract?
technologies or systems. The relatively new tool
of Environmental Technology Assessment (EnTA)
developed by the United Nations Environment • release of waste to surface water, and
Programme (UNEP) provides a valuable frame- resulting water pollution that causes
work for assessing technology impacts not only release of methane, associated with anaero-
on the physical environment, but also on the bic decomposition under water.
local social and economic circumstances.26
ISWM is one of a number of tools and frame- The availability of carbon trading schemes
works; but many others are equally useful. makes it possible to finance the improvement of
disposal that reduces greenhouse gas emissions.
■ Reducing GHG emissions through gas There are at least two accepted methodologies
capture or methane avoidance
for doing this: composting and landfill gas extrac-
Improper disposal harms the global as well as
local environment. Typical global environmental
Several of the reference cities have been
and climate issues associated with open dumping
utilizing, or are in the approval process for, such
schemes. Dhaka has an exemplary composting
initiative, combined with separate collection of
• air pollution and release of particulates,
organic waste.
fine particles and carbon dioxide (CO2) from
open or low-temperature burning;
• release of methane from anaerobic decom-
position of organic materials under the
surface; and
Solid Waste Management in the World's Cities
The basis for all private-sector recycling
RESOURCE activity is 'valorization' of materials. Simply
MANAGEMENT: explained, when the owner of an item throws it
away, it still has some retained value. For exam-
VALORIZING ple, a cotton t-shirt includes cotton fibres, which
RECYCLABLES AND were first grown, then harvested, then processed
ORGANIC MATERIALS through a cotton gin to make them pliable, then
AND CONSERVING wound into yarn. The yarn was woven into
RESOURCES cotton cloth, which was then coloured, cut,
sewed into a t-shirt shape, and finished.
Resource management is the third physical When the t-shirt is no longer useful to its
element of an ISWM system. The term represents owner, it may be given to a younger or poorer
a collection of public and private, formal and member of the family or the community. If no one
informal activities that result in diverting materi- wants it, someone else may be willing to reuse it
als from disposal and recovering them in order to for work clothing and the global trade in used
return them to productive use. Some products clothing takes advantage of this reuse value.
can be reused directly for their original or a simi- When it isn't useful as a shirt, it can be used as a
lar use, while recyclables are returned to the rag or cut down to make diaper for a baby, which
industrial value chain and organic materials to recovers, at a minimum, the value in the materi-
the agricultural value chain. When there is als used to make it. If the cloth is too old or too
enough value in these materials to produce an dirty to be worn or recut, the yarn still has value
income stream, this document uses the European for making new textiles or for pressing into felt
term valorization to cover both sets of activities or industrial rags. When the yarn isn't recover-
and materials because it refers to extracting able, the rest can be burned for heat – it was
value. recently reported that poor-quality clothing
exported to Romania from Germany was being
Basic issues sold for fuel in wood stoves because the price – 5
Recycling is perhaps the most misunderstood Euros per kilo – was less than the locally avail-
element of ISWM and it has two 'faces': a able wood for burning. Thus, the commodities
commodities value 'face' and a service 'face'. face of recycling drives most recycling before the
The commodities value face is driven by the intrin- onset of solid waste modernization and has since
sic economic value of materials to be found in the 19th century.
waste. The origins of waste management are in Similarly, China has a long tradition of
rag-picking for its value, and the resource value materials recovery, both organic nutrients and
left in waste remains a major driver for private- inorganic materials, as demonstrated by a thriv-
sector recycling activities. In some of the ing and effective network of small shops and
reference cities (e.g. Kunming and Lusaka), large 'recycle markets' for metal recovery in the
resource management is still a completely sepa- reference city of Kunming. The Chinese govern-
rate set of activities, institutions, actors and ment commitment to promoting materials
economic relations, and has little or no relation- recovery, especially in industrial processes, is
ship to the solid waste system. again becoming a priority in China, as is
confirmed by the passage of their Circular
Economy Law in August 2008.27
The three integrated sustainable waste management system elements in the reference cities
A. H. M. Maqsood Sinha (co-founder Waste Concern) and
Iftekhar Enayetullah (co-founder Waste Concern)
Figure K9.1
How the Clean
Mechanism project
uses public, private
and community
Note: The Designated
National Authority (DNA)
of Bangladesh was estab-
lished in 2004. Waste
Concern submitted its PIN
and PDD to the DNA on
29 February 2004. This
project was approved by
the DNA of Bangladesh on
8 August 2004 and regis-
tered with the UNFCCC
on 18 May 2006.
Solid Waste Management in the World's Cities
partners who developed the methodology to Dhaka City. Out of a total 12 million Euros, the
account for methane reduction using aerobic mode of finance is as follows:
composting technology, which was approved of
by the Expert Methodology Panel of the • 38 per cent of project cost: 4.6 million
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Euros as equity;
(IPCC) of the UNFCCC. This methodology has • 45 per cent of project cost: 5.4 million
opened a new channel to bring carbon financing Euros as a soft loan from FMO Bank and
to waste composting projects in developing coun- Triodos Bank;
tries. Using this methodology, Waste Concern • 17 per cent of project cost: 2 million Euros
and its Dutch partners were able to get the proj- as a local loan from a local bank in
ect approved by the CDM board of the Bangladesh.
Designated National Authority (DNA) of the
government of Bangladesh, and later had it
successfully registered with UNFCCC. As a joint CURRENT STATE OF
venture project of Waste Concern and its Dutch
partners, it was also registered with the Board of
Investment (BoI) in Bangladesh. The project
resulted in a 12 million Euro investment in WWR Bio Fertilizer Bangladesh, Ltd took the
Bangladesh. initiative to establish three large decentralized
compost plants around the city. Total capacity of
the composting plants is 700 tonnes per day of
THE CARBON organic waste from the DCC area. The agreement
between WWR Bio Fertilizer Bangladesh, Ltd
and DCC mentions that the capacity of the
WWR Bio Fertilizer Bangladesh, Ltd, a joint compost plants will be increased gradually. The
venture company, has four major equity share first 130-tonne-per-day compost plant was in
holders: Waste Concern (Bangladesh) and World operation by 25 November 2009.
Wide Recycling BV, FMO Bank and Triodos Bank The stages of increase are as follows:
(The Netherlands). Total investment in this joint
monitoring at Bulta venture is 12 million Euros in a few phases for • first year from the date of commencement,
© Waste Concern the 700 tonne per day capacity compost plant for by 2009: reach capacity of up to 100
tonnes per day;
• second year from the date of commence-
ment, by 2010: increase capacity up to 300
tonnes per day;
• third year from the date of commencement,
by 2011: increase capacity up to 700
tonnes per day.
In 2005, the International Finance Corporation The ultimate objective of the programme
(IFC) initiated a three-year long Recycling was to improve the performance of the recycling
Linkages Programme (RLP) in the area of recy- industry in the region by creating positive
cling (paper, plastics and metal) and solid waste economic, social and environmental impacts,
management across the economies of the resulting in significant increases in the volume of
Western Balkans (Albania, FYR Macedonia, collected and recycled scrap across the region.
Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro and The programme activities focused on:
Kosovo). The recycling industry was selected due
to its ability to foster strong economic growth of • improving the regulatory environment by
the private sector while creating sustainable addressing the recycling industry in the
livelihoods among marginalized groups working region;
in the sector. The RLP was jointly funded by the • strengthening operational capacity and
IFC and the Republic of Austria, Federal access to finance of the private sector
Ministry of Finance. involved in recycling operations, including
individual waste-pickers; and
• increasing public awareness on the benefits
of recycling.
Until recently, there has been little attention paid and resource management and related cost
to the similarities and differences in recycling savings are interesting as solid waste strategies
performance in high-income countries as opposed only after disposal has been modernized and
to low- and middle-income countries now actively regionalized. Before this, initiatives for separate
modernizing. Western European and North collection systems for organics and recyclables
American countries saw rapid development of so- are usually only included as an environmental
called 'municipal recycling,' driven by the high project of a non-governmental organization (NGO)
cost of landfilling and a need to divert waste or community-based organization (CBO), or in
from disposal, during the 1980s and 1990s, with response to donor or international NGO interest,
the result that leading recycling cities are and the informal recycling sector is seldom
achieving between 50 and 70 per cent recycling. considered and rarely understood as part of such
Generally, the emphasis on improving waste environmentally driven initiatives. A concrete
management in most cities in low- and middle- example is the Philippines, where buying and sell-
income countries focuses first on increasing ing of scrap metal goes back to World War II,
collection percentages and then, usually with when considerable metal waste materials from
donor or central government funding, on improv- the American camps were being given away to
ing disposal. This is to be expected in the sense locals who used them for all types of construction
Trading centre for
that the driver for public health is usually domi- and for furniture-making. Enterprising locals then
sorted wastes,
Philippines nant in these countries; the driver for started to set up scrap-iron shops. The thriving
© SWAPP environment comes later and has less priority, junk shops of all types of recyclables today owe
their origin to the scrap-iron shops. But the prac-
tice was never associated with recycling and
resource management, only as simple 'buy-and-
sell' livelihood until the mid 1990s when
government began to recognize and regulate recy-
cling as part of the solid waste management
system. Some cities in low- and middle-income
countries join zero waste initiatives and work on
policies to support recycling; but without under-
standing that their situations and baseline
conditions are somewhat different, these initia-
tives are not usually very successful.
The three integrated sustainable waste management system elements in the reference cities
Tonnes/year Tonnes/year Percentage Materials Tonnes initially Tonnes Estimated Daily generation
Table K11.1
generated generated but not entering entering entering formal initially residential per capita Citywide generation
not entering solid waste solid waste waste and entering generation (kg/capita/day) of solid waste in the
solid waste system system system recycling informal waste
six GTZ/CWG
(tonnes/year) and recycling
(2007) cities*,1
Cairo 3,454,996 177,336 5 3,277,660 810,677 2,567,142 2,865,378 0.65 Note: * Amounts generated
Cluj 194,458 33,981 17 160,477 145,779 14,575 163,085 0.70 and entering both systems
Lima 2,725,424 37,349 1 2,688,074 1,839,711 848,364 1,956,228 0.72 are not add to totals
Lusaka 301,840 91,437 30 188,890 90,720 98,170 245,996 0.52 because of losses and
Pune 544,215 17,885 3 526,330 394,200 132,130 369,745 0.33 rounding. In two cases,
generation figures are
Quezon City 623,380 10,135 2 613,245 489,606 141,831 380,261 0.25
established by utilizing
coefficients for generation
per household and per
business or per capita
The specific situation in relation to recy- means: there is less waste and therefore less to multiplied by data regarding
number of households,
cling is one of the focus areas in the draft report be captured by recycling and organics recovery. businesses and population
Economic Aspects of the Informal Sector in Solid Looking at Table K11.2, it is possible to see within the cities. In other
cities, the generation came
Waste during 2006 to 2007 (GTZ/CWG, 2007). how much of the waste could be recovered in the from existing city data.
The integrated sustainable waste management six cities. Low- and middle-income countries have Source: GTZ/CWG (2007)
not important. In fact, the informal sector may (except in Cluj) represents a net cost. In all
already be removing and recovering as much as cities, the informal sector is responsible for
20 per cent of the waste at no cost to the local substantially more benefits on a per tonne basis.
authority. This is a positive environmental exter- This suggests that trying to eliminate the infor-
nality which the municipality enjoys without mal sector is a risky strategy that will increase
having to pay for it because the environmental overall costs. Once a city has disposal under
gain is a by-product of the economic interests of control, they are likely to make legal or adminis-
informal recyclers. trative claims on the recyclables. A recent court
The informal sector has a significant decision in Colombia sets a precedent that this
economic footprint. While the estimates are diffi- may not be legal.4 This competition over access
cult to verify, they are indicative and show the to recyclables often leads to criminalization of
extent to which this sector affects the economic waste-picking, police harassment or thug-like
situation. abuse of waste-pickers and their families.5 When
Table K11.6 considers the overall impacts municipal administrations in low- and middle-
of informal recycling (and service) activities on income countries successfully prohibit informal Table K11.6
waste system costs. The formal-sector recycling activities and take over valorization, the result- Modelled total solid
infrastructure may well consist of second-hand ing municipal recycling activities are generally waste materials
handling system
costs per tonne, net
costs per tonne
Formal sector Informal sector
(with revenues for
Material handled Total cost/ Total net Total net Material Total cost/ Total net Total net
(tonnes) tonne cost/tonne sector cost handled tonne cost/tonne sector cost material sales
(Euros) (Euros) (Euros) (Euros) (Euros) (Euros) included), and total
net costs for the
Cairo 810,667 9.88 4.78 3,878,309 2,567,143 2.92 (31.51) (80,898,939) whole sector for all
Cluj 145,779 25.45 (23.54) (3,431,638) 14,575 5.29 (403.33) (1,993,661) tonnes handled by
Lima 1,839,711 41.64 41.14 75,689,381 848,364 90.84 (27.48) (23,314,818) that sector
Lusaka 90,720 127.53 76.34 6,925,113 98,170 5.05 (157.45) (15,456,411)
Note: parentheses indicate a
Pune 394,200 22.74 22.74 8,964,662 132,130 11.67 (70.39) (9,300,082)
net revenue.
Quezon City 489,606 31.40 25.36 12,415,362 123,639 36.19 (63.72) (7,878,883)
Source: GTZ/CWG (2007),
project data.
Solid Waste Management in the World's Cities
more expensive, less efficient and more likely to to recycling and seeking to transfer valorization
be overcapitalized than parallel informal activi- activities to an inexperienced public sector strug-
ties. gling to 'domesticate' expensive international
The most important conclusion for recy- environmental norms has very high risks, recov-
cling planners is simple: the informal sector ers small amounts of materials, and produces few
saves the city money and improves the environ- economic or environmental benefits.
mental footprint of waste management activities
at no cost to taxpayers or the city budget. Or, in
other words, private-sector valorization activity NOTES
has significant and quantifiable positive 1 The information in Table K11.1 is a summary of much
economic benefits as well as positive environmen- more detailed information developed in GTZ/CWG,
2007, Annex 6, City Report and Workbook for Cluj-
tal externalities. The city authorities can Napoca, Romania, which may have disaggregated
generation figures by density of housing stock, such as in
increase these positive impacts – and work Lusaka, or by governmental sub-areas within the city, such
together with the informal sector to optimize and as seen in Lima's data. See the City Reports for additional
detail and specific sources.
legitimize their activities, and institutionalize the 2 Recycling Summit, 2008, closing phase 1 of the IFC
Recycling Linkages Programme.
benefits to citizens and informal enterprises – 3 Earnings in the informal sector includes both earnings
and in the process may even be able to harvest from recycling activities and from service fees for mixed
or separate collection, street sweeping, etc. Sales to the
climate credits. This is a win–win approach, recycling industry covers sales made to the recycling
industry, but from both informal sector and formal
fitting into the models of inclusivity and sustain- sources.
ability. In contrast, the more common approach 4 GTZ/CWG, 2007.
5 Chaturvedi, 2006; GTZ/CWG, 2007.
of establishing new public-sector exclusive rights
The three integrated sustainable waste management system elements in the reference cities
Frits Fransen (ex-ROTEB)
City Total organic waste Tonnes to animal Generated to animal Tonnes to Generated to composting
generated in municipal feeding feeding of total composting or or land application
solid waste organic waste (%) land application of total organic waste (%)
Adelaide 622,000 0 280,609 0 Table 4.8
Adelaide 424,158 0 0% 193,432 46% Destinations of
Bamako 144,908 0 0% 144,908 100% organic waste in the
Bengaluru 1,500,606 0 0% 209,875 14% reference cities.
Belo Horizonte 850,936 0 0% 2300 0.27%
Solid waste master
Canete 5759 0 0% 0 0%
plans often target the
Curepipe 11,384 0 0% 0 0% large quantities of
Delhi 2,066,250 NA NA 165,565 8% organic waste to go to
Dhaka 864,320 NA NA 47,450 NA composting or anaero-
Ghorahi 2595 0 0% NA NA bic digestion to
Kunming 582,000 500 0% NA NA produce biogas.Yet this
Lusaka 118,623 NA NA NA NA table suggests that
Managua 311,047 8395 3% 22 0.01% animal feeding, espe-
Moshi 40,333 6205 15% 6205 15% cially swine feeding, is
Nairobi 567,648 35,040 6% 5676 1% important in many
Quezon City 370,201 12,723 3% 1592 0.43% cities and represents an
Rotterdam 80,070 0 0% 3255 4% untapped potential.
San Francisco 170,797 0 0% 132,000 77% Notes: NA = not available;
Sousse 43,968 2500 6% 0 0% NR = not reported.
Tompkins County 17,112 0 0% NA NA Figures in italic are
Varna 32,836 NA NA NA NA estimates. Figures are
Average 410,278 4085 2% 60,819 19% calculated based on
organic fraction in waste
Median 157,852 0 0% 5676 3%
composition and total
waste generated
Solid Waste Management in the World's Cities
City Tonnes recovered, Percentage Percentage Operation recovering the most Tonnes recovered by Percentage of total
all sectors recoved by recoved by operation recovering recovered by operaration
formal sector informal sector the most recovering the most
Adelaide 2,611,214 70% 0% Formal recycling of C&D waste 1,257,182 48%
Bamako 392,893 0% 85% Formal and informal land application (terreautage) 144,908 37%
Belo Horizonte 145,134 6% 0% Formal recovery of C&D waste 132,934 92%
Bengaluru 524,688 10% 15% Informal waste picking, IWBs of various materials 314,813 60%
Canete 1412 1% 11% Informal IWBs collect various materials 548 39%
Curepipe NA NA NA Informal recovery of metals NA NA
Delhi 841,070 7% 27% Informal recovery by waste pickers 1251 0%
Dhaka 210,240 0% 18% Formal recycling of paper supplied by informal recovery 61,320 29%
Ghorahi 365 2% 9% Informal IWBs collect various materials 300 82%
Kunming NA NA NA Informal recovery for recycling by IWBs and dump-pickers NA NA
Lusaka 17,446 4% 2% Formal recovery organised by recycling industry 12,027 69%
Managua 78,840 3% 15% Informal recovery by dump pickers of various materials 44,530 56%
Moshi 11,169 0% 18% Informal animal feeding, land application of organic waste 11,169 100%
Nairobi 210,240 NA NA Formal and informal recovery of paper and plastic NA NA
Quezon City 287,972 8% 31% Informal IWBs collect various materials 176,316 61%
Rotterdam 90,897 30% 0% Formal recovery of paper and carton 21,125 23%
San Francisco 366,762 72% 0% Formal recovery for recycling, various materials 254,101 69%
Sousse 4168 0% 6% Informal recovery for animal feeding 1500 36%
Tompkins County 36,495 61% 0% Formal recovery of metals for recycling 35,302 97%
Varna 37,414 2% 26% Informal recovery by waste pickers 35,207 94%
Average 326,023 16% 15% 147,325 58%
Median 118,016 4% 11% 35,302 60%
Table 4.9 sector unless it specifically says 'informal'. The food as animal feed; other organic wastes, includ-
Optimizing recovery reference cities also report formal activities in a ing the organic fraction of municipal solid waste,
by building on
more detailed way than 'informal recovery'. agricultural wastes and human excreta, were
Notes: NA = not available;
One of the key principles of ISWM is to generally returned the soil. This organic resource
NR = not reported. build on what you have. Therefore, studying the loop is still important today, as was witnessed in
Figures in italic are esti-
mates. Tonnes recovered: high-recovery parts of the system, and building UN-Habitat's bio-solids atlas, Global Atlas of
Adelaide – includes C&D
waste, and industrial waste
on them, is a key means of arriving at good prac- Excreta, Wastewater Sludge and Biosolids
for South Australia; Belo tices and making sound and sustainable plans. Of Management.31 The organic fraction is often
Horizonte – includes C&D
waste; Tompkins County – course, when making these kinds of choices, between 50 and 70 per cent by weight of munici-
includes tonnes prevented
and reused.
other criteria, such as efficiency, cost and inclu- pal waste in developing countries. Therefore,
sivity, are also important. exploring possibilities of engaging citizens and
service providers in 'recycling' organic waste
■ Organic waste valorization
through composting would alone significantly
Pre-industrial societies reused any edible leftover
improve the situation and alleviate the problems
Box 4.20 Plastic bag reduction of municipal solid waste. Composting organic
waste, either at household level or on a more
Delhi has been struggling with what to do with plastic bags for over a decade. During
the late 1990s, a strong civil society movement against all plastic bags, driven primarily aggregated scale, can prove to be a worthwhile
by schoolchildren and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) aimed to reduce the effort, as experiences from various countries
city's ecological footprint. However, this soon converted into a restriction on plastic testify.32 A good example is Bangladesh (see Box
bags based on their thickness. This was difficult to monitor. The city was more success-
ful in phasing out flimsy plastic bags that contained dyes, suspected to contain toxins,
mostly on account of the chief minister's personal interest in this issue. During recent Recycling or composting only makes sense
years, recycled plastic bags have been targeted as being unsafe. Ironically, this has if there is a market for the product. Whereas
reduced the market for recycled plastic bags; but it is still easy to get plastic bags from markets for recyclable materials exist in most
virgin materials. In 2009, the courts banned plastic bags entirely. Although the ban has
countries in the recycling value chain, this is only
not been fully implemented, the virgin plastic industry has since formed an association
to fight the ban and convince the public to start using plastic bags again. In these discus- partially true for organic wastes. Food waste
sions, the plastic recyclers remain marginalized. may still have a market value as animal feed,
and farmers used to accept or even pay for
The three integrated sustainable waste management system elements in the reference cities
organic wastes in order to compost it them-
selves. This was the general disposal route in
China before chemical fertilizers took over, and is
still the case in parts of West Africa.
Organic waste in these circumstances may
have a market value; but products made from it,
such as compost, usually do not. For this reason,
it is not reliable to assume that there is a
'market' for compost. Instead, a market for
compost needs to be developed by building
urban–rural linkages and by educating potential
users and buyers of compost about its properties,
nutrient value, and similarities or differences in
relation to the fertilizers and mulches, which are Ministry of the Environment, the United Nations Locally
better known. This process takes several years, Centre for Regional Development (UNCRD), and vehicle for collecting
and compost operations are generally not able to 12 Asian countries. Two of these countries, the and transporting
sorted recyclables in
cover their own costs until compost itself Philippines and Bangladesh, have cities repre- Vargas,Venezuela.
becomes a commodity with a market price. sented in this Third Global Report. But while the The high sides
increase the volume
High-income countries have done much progress of recycling in the Philippines and of the light
work on product specifications to give the buyer composting and climate credits in Bangladesh recyclables that can
be transported
confidence in the quality of the compost product. make them global good practice leaders, their
© Jeroen IJgosse
An important consideration in this has been the record with prevention and reuse remains ques-
presence of trace contaminants, particularly tionable. Particularly in the Philippines, where
heavy metals, in the compost. This problem can Republic Act 9003 encourages prevention and
be avoided by composting a source-separated prohibits incineration, there is a need for strong
organic fraction so that the possibility of cross- prevention work. All countries could begin by
contamination by other waste components is tracking and reporting results of prevention
avoided. initiatives, as well as monitoring the numbers of
materials flowing through (private) reuse chan-
■ Prevention and reuse
Prevention and reuse are important because they
improve the functioning of both the economic ■ Applying lessons from high-diversion
system and the waste management system. Low- recycling successes
and middle-income countries are generally better Current recycling initiatives in Europe, North
at these activities, which have to be formally America and Australasia were put into place
promoted in high-income countries with higher during the mid 1980s. By now, they have
material standards. Many developing and transi- between 20 and 25 years of monitoring, evalua-
tional country cities still have active systems of tion and experience that can be highly useful for
informal-sector recycling, reuse and repair, which decision-makers and practitioners. This Third
often achieve recycling rates comparable to Global Report includes three developed country
those in the West, at no cost to the formal waste cities with high recycling rates: Adelaide,
management sector. One missed opportunity is Tompkins County and San Francisco, and one,
that few countries either monitor or report the Quezon City, whose solid waste law and current
performance of prevention and reuse initiatives. practices deliver higher recycling rates than the
Prevention (sometimes called 'reduction') rest of the reference cities in low- and middle-
and reuse are the pillars of the new 3R Regional income countries. In different ways, these four
Forum in Asia, an initiative of the Japanese cities bear the burden to illustrate the principles
Solid Waste Management in the World's Cities
certain areas and collect source-separated recy-
Box 4.21 Institutionalizing the sink value of recycling in The Netherlands
clables. Cañete is in the process of applying these
The Netherlands has a long tradition of favouring recycling over other forms of waste
experiences to its own modest waste stream,
management, whether it is profitable or not. Three examples demonstrate this:
based in part on successful experience in the
1 Extended producer responsibility (EPR) agreements in The Netherlands, called capital of Peru: the combined cities of Lima and
covenants, establish that certain industries must pay for recycling as part of their Callao.
responsibility for safe end-of-life management of their products. The paper covenant
Whatever the specific idea, making use of
creates an obligation for paper recycling companies to reimburse municipalities for
collection and processing costs when the economic value of the paper is too low this global body of experience and applying the
to cover these costs. lessons learned is a key element of good practice.
2 Municipalities pay non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and non-state actors,
including recycling centres and second-hand shops, a diversion credit based on the ■ Working with the informal sector
number of tonnes that they collect and market. Many non-profit recycling shops Not only does the informal recycling sector
claim these credits, which are usually a part of the cost of disposal. provide livelihoods to huge numbers of the urban
3 Recycling in The Netherlands is such an important sink that it is fully paid for out of
the waste management fee, the 'afvalheffing,' which every household pays to their
poor, thus contributing to the Millennium
municipality. In Rotterdam the ROTEB, the waste management company, calculates Development Goals (MDGs), but the information
this fee by adding together all of its capital and operating costs of sweeping, collec- in the reference cities suggests that informal
tion, recycling, composting and disposal, and spreading it across all households and recyclers divert 15 to 20 per cent of the city's
businesses in the city.
recyclables, which translates to savings in its
waste management budget by reducing the
of what works and what does not. A fifth city, amount of wastes that would otherwise have to
Bamako, reports high recycling rates based on be collected and disposed of by the city. In effect,
the fact that the raw waste is recovered by the poor are subsidizing the rest of the city.
spreading on fields after decomposing on illegal There is an opportunity for the city to build
dumps. This approach to high recovery is a kind on these existing recycling systems in order to
of emergency measure, which, while it has maximize the use of waste as a resource, to
lessons for other countries, is not considered to protect and develop people's livelihoods, and to
be a global good practice. reduce the costs to the city of managing the resid-
No recycling system based solely on ual wastes. Bengaluru's approach to recycling in
'awareness-raising' receives high recovery rates; businesses is a good example of such cooperation:
but neither is high recovery possible without businesses hire waste-pickers to manage their
this. High diversion such as is demonstrated in waste and do basic cleaning. The waste-pickers
Tompkins County or San Francisco or Quezon get a modest salary and also get to keep the
City is based both on providers modifying and materials. The formal and informal sectors are
adapting the system and on users adjusting their working together, for the benefit of both.
behaviour. A whole range of approaches to home With the exception of Quezon City, the
composting, source separation at the office, sepa- reference cities still have some way to go in
rate collection of kitchen and garden waste, and learning how to combine high recycling perform-
prevention have been tried and there is informa- ance with integration of the informal sector into
tion available on how they work. municipal recycling. In spite of their efforts in
In the same way, countries such as Brazil this direction, Belo Horizonte's recycling effort
have more than 20 years of experience in build- recovers only very small percentages of waste;
ing modern recycling initiatives, together with as a result, too much is being landfilled and the
the informal sector, on the model of the pioneer- landfill is reaching capacity more quickly than
ing work of Asmare in Belo Horizonte, anticipated. San Francisco's way of incorporat-
franchising depots to informal-sector operators, ing the private sector provides some interesting
and the work of Linis Ganda in Metro-Manila, ideas.
licensing itinerant waste buyers (IWBs) to enter
The three integrated sustainable waste management system elements in the reference cities
Box 4.22 A scrap of decency
AMONG those suffering from the global recession are millions of workers who are not even included in the official statistics: urban recyclers –
the trash pickers, sorters, traders and re-processors who extricate paper, cardboard and plastics from garbage heaps and prepare them for
reuse.Their work is both unrecorded and largely unrecognised, even though in some parts of the world they handle as much as 20 percent of
all waste.
The world's 15 million informal recyclers clean up cities, prevent some trash from ending in landfills, and even reduce climate change
by saving energy on waste disposal techniques like incineration.
They also recycle waste much more cheaply and efficiently than governments or corporations can, and in many cities in the developing
world, they provide the only recycling services.
But as housing values and the cost of oil have fallen worldwide, so too has the price of scrap metal, paper and plastic. From India to
Brazil to the Philippines, recyclers are experiencing a precipitous drop in income.Trash pickers and scrap dealers in Minas Gerais State in
Brazil, for example, saw a decline of as much as 80 percent in the price of old magazines and 81 percent for newspapers, and a 77 percent
drop in the price of cardboard from October 2007 to last December.
In the Philippines, many scrap dealers have shuttered so quickly that researchers at the Solid Waste Management Association of the
Philippines didn't have a chance to record their losses.
In Delhi, some 80 percent of families in the informal recycling business surveyed by my organization said they had cut back on 'luxury
foods,' which they defined as fruit, milk and meat. About 41 percent had stopped buying milk for their children. By this summer, most of these
children, already malnourished, hadn't had a glass of milk in nine months. Many of these children have also cut down on hours spent in school
to work alongside their parents.
Families have liquidated their most valuable assets – primarily copper from electrical wires – and have stopped sending remittances
back to their rural villages. Many have also sold their emergency stores of grain.Their misery is not as familiar as that of the laid-off workers of
imploding corporations, but it is often more tragic.
Few countries have adopted emergency measures to help trash pickers. Brazil, for one, is providing recyclers, or 'catadores,' with
cheaper food, both through arrangements with local farmers and by offering food subsidies. Other countries, with the support of nongovern-
mental organizations and donor agencies, should follow Brazil's example. Unfortunately, most trash pickers operate outside official notice and
end up falling through the cracks of programs like these.
A more efficient temporary solution would be for governments to buoy the buying price of scrap.To do this, they'd have to pay a small
subsidy to waste dealers so they could purchase scrap from trash pickers at about 20 percent above the current price.This increase, if well
advertised and broadly utilized, would bring recyclers back from the brink. In the long run, though, these invisible workers will remain especially
vulnerable to economic slowdowns unless they are integrated into the formal business sector, where they can have insurance and reliable wages.
This is not hard to accomplish. Informal junk shops should have to apply for licenses, and governments should create or expand
doorstep waste collection programs to employ trash pickers. Instead of sorting through haphazard trash heaps and landfills, the pickers would
have access to the cleaner scrap that comes straight from households and often brings a higher price. Employing the trash pickers at this step
would ensure that recyclables wouldn't have to be lugged to landfills in the first place.
Experienced trash pickers, once incorporated into the formal economy, would recycle as efficiently as they always have, but they'd gain
access to information on global scrap prices and would be better able to bargain for fair compensation. Governments should charge house-
holds a service fee, which would also supplement the trash pickers' income, and provide them with an extra measure of insurance against
future crises.Their labour makes our cities healthier and more liveable.We all stand to gain by making sure that the work of recycling remains
sustainable for years to come.
Source: 'A scrap of decency', Bharati Chaturvedi, The New York Times, op-ed, 5 August 2009, www.nytimes.com/2009/08/05/opinion/05chaturvedi.html
Note: the author, Bharati Chaturvedi, is the founder and director of the Chintan Environmental Research and Action Group.
■ Designing for high diversion and are smaller, the specific densities different, the
valorization participation rates more variable, and the types
During the last 25 years, it has become clear that of set-out containers and logistics of loading vehi-
there is a real difference between well- and poorly cles makes it possible to have routes that are
designed formal recycling activities. Studies, significantly longer and serve up to three times
particularly in Canada where there has been the number of households per route day as is
substantial monitoring of recycling collection effi- possible when collecting mixed waste. A local
ciency, demonstrate that separate collection has authority who simply sends a truck to collect
a much different economy of scale than waste recyclables on the same route may be saving
collection: the amounts set out by households resources but throwing away money.
Solid Waste Management in the World's Cities
North American experience has also indi- national level (such as the county plan in
cated that co-collecting some materials works Tompkins County).
better than collecting single materials or materi- • They are based on phased implementation
als streams. Separate collections during the and horizontal learning.
1980s and 1990s commingled paper and card- • They are designed to be convenient for ordi-
board, on the one hand, and glass, plastic and nary people and do not rely on heroic
aluminium cans, on the other: the densities of the measures or special levels of effort.
combined streams were more favourable for both • They focus on an 'opportunity to recycle'
collection and transport and made it relatively that is as easy and convenient – or easier
easy for high-performance post-collection sorting and more convenient – then the normal way
in materials recovery facilities (MRFs). of disposing of mixed waste.
Increasingly, at the time of writing, North • They give multiple options to households
American separate collection focuses on single and businesses (e.g. collection at the house-
stream collection of the main materials, which are hold, plus a depot in the neighbourhood,
collected separately from non-recyclable waste. plus collection at the market, plus a place
The high-performing recycling and organic to sell large quantities of materials).
waste systems tend to have some elements in • They rely on logistical interventions in the
common: household that give users physical and
visual reminders. Examples include contain-
• Nothing is collected for which there is not ers of different colours and shapes, carrier
an established market or a market develop- bags for bringing recycling to drop-off
ment strategy, even if the commodity value centres, and the like.
of the to-be-collected material is null. • If there are financial incentives, they are
• They are based on the results of a highly modest and reward high-performing house-
participatory recycling planning process, holds with recognition, rather than direct
either for the city itself, or at regional or cash payments for materials.
1 UN-Habitat, 2009, p129. 9 WRAP (2009) The Waste India: people from lower 22 Joseph, 2007.
2 Documentary film La Collection Commitment, social strata; in the 23 See examples given in
Vache Qui Ne Rit Pas, www.wrap.org.uk/local_ Balkans and Central 'The scale of the solid
CEK, Bamako, Mali. authorities/waste_ Europe: Roma people; in waste problem' in
3 'Nigeria: Country loses commitment.html. the US: the dominant Chapter 2.
N10 billion annually to 10 Coffey, 2009. group of new 24 This specific example is
unhealthy environment – 11 See UWEP City Case immigrants). from Zambia, provided
Rep', 29 July 2008, Study for Bamako, and 15 Various sources, e.g. by Manus Coffey, pers
http://allafrica.com/storie UWEP Programme www.greatgarbage comm.
s/200807290311.html. Reports, 1995–2002, patch.org/. 25 A study by the Dutch
4 METAP Solid Waste WASTE, Gouda, The 16 ERL (1992) Quantification, Agricultural Economics
Management Centre Netherlands. Characteristics and Institute (LEI) and
website: 'Highlights – 12 See UWEP City Case Disposal Methods of WASTE in 2003, showed
Decision Makers', Study for Bengaluru, and Municipal Waste in the EU that, at that time, there
Support document, UWEP Programme – Technical and Economic are also few health or
www.metap- Reports, 1995–2002, Aspects, Report for the environmental problems
solidwaste.org/ WASTE, Gouda, The European Commission. with land-spreading.
index.php?id=12. Netherlands. 17 See www.wasteonline. 26 Hay and Noonan, 2002.
5 Hawley and Ward, 2008. 13 WASTE feasibility study org.uk/resources/ 27 See www.china
6 UN-Habitat, Global for a PPP in Nairobi, 1999. InformationSheets/Histor environmentallaw.com/
Urban Observatory 14 In many countries, waste yofWaste.htm. 2008/08/30/
2009. Data compiled work in both the formal 18 Rushbrook and Pugh, china-adopts-circular-
from national demo- and informal sectors is 1998. economy-law/.
graphic and health surveys. often reserved for 19 Ali et al, 1999. 28 Wilson et al, 2009.
7 Scheinberg and Mol, in members of disadvan- 20 Rouse, 2006. 29 GTZ/CWG, 2007.
press. taged classes and 21 WASTE project for 30 Chaturvedi, 2009.
8 See www.chinadaily.net/ religious or ethnic UNEP IETC for private 31 Le Blanc et al, 2006.
olympics/2007-02/11/ minorities (e.g. in Egypt: waste collection company 32 Rothenberger et al, 2006.
content_6005068.htm. Coptic Christians; in in Nairobi, 1999.
How do you manage a solid waste management Successful ISWM interventions, represented by
system? Until the 1990s, the answer would have the 'first triangle' consisting of the three physical
been framed around technology. But this does not elements discussed in the previous chapter, rest
allow us to answer many related questions (e.g. on and are supported by this governance trian-
for whom is the waste managed; how can gle.
conflicting ideas and claims be dealt with; who is
responsible for planning the system and creating
it; who operates it; who maintains it; who pays INCLUSIVITY
for it; who uses it; and, above all, who owns it?).
This section begins by looking at who are the
All of these questions can be addressed more
stakeholders in a waste management system. It
easily within the framework of integrated
then looks at issues relating to equity for the
sustainable waste management (ISWM).
system users in order to ensure that a fair and
Integrated sustainable waste management is
adequate service is provided to all citizens; and
based on 'good garbage governance', and its goal
at equity among service providers – large and
includes inclusive, financially sustainable and
small, formal and informal – in terms of a fair
institutionally responsive waste management,
distribution of economic opportunities for provid-
which functions well for users and providers.
ing the service or valorizing materials.
This chapter focuses on three key gover-
nance features of ISWM, which together form
the 'second triangle': Key issues and concepts
■ Who are the stakeholders?
1 inclusivity and fairness, with a dual focus This discussion starts with a basic assertion that
on inclusivity for users of the ISWM system solid waste management is a public service. Solid
and inclusivity for providers; waste management is a public good in the sense
2 financial sustainability; and that addressing public health and environment
3 sound institutions and proactive policies. and resource management are tasks that are
considered responsibilities of the governmental
Solid Waste Management in the World's Cities
departments may be involved, as may regional
government, neighbouring jurisdictions,
transnational institutions and the private
sector. They will often listen to different stake-
holders and therefore have diverging
institutional positions on what is needed and
who is responsible for it.
While national authorities create the
boundary conditions, it is the municipal authori-
ties who are responsible for solid waste
management in a city – that is, for establishing
the legal, regulatory and financial boundary
Waste-picker in sector. These are responsibilities which individ-
Belo Horizonte, conditions that make it possible to provide the
Brazil, on her way to ual families or businesses cannot organize for
service or extract materials for valorization.
sell her collected their neighbours, just as they cannot arrange
plastic materials Historically, solid waste is a municipal responsi-
taxation or military protection.
© Sonia Diaz bility because municipal authorities are the main
But different responsibilities fall to differ-
stakeholder responsible for public health: they
ent levels of government. National government
receive the blame if the service is not provided or
sets the policy, financial and administrative
falls below an accepted or agreed-upon standard.
framework within which the city needs to work,
This does not mean that they have to provide the
and national ministries and departments are
service on their own, especially when a range of
influenced by an increasingly globalized vision
other stakeholders are looking for opportunities
of correctness, which comes into the discourse
to plan the system, make investments, provide
as 'best practice'. Many different ministries and
the service, organize users, supply the economic
actors with equipment, valorize materials, and
Box 5.1 Public interest litigation in India: Sugar PIL or bitter PIL? have cleaner neighbourhoods.
Public interest litigation (PIL) has been an important means of urban policy-making in Delhi The second key concept is therefore stake-
during the last 12 to 15 years, from sealing 'polluting industries' to banning plastic bags. The holders – that is, the people and institutions
response to solid waste in Delhi has also been shaped, in part, by two PILs: B. L.Wadhera who have a stake in waste management and
versus the Union of India and Others (1996) and Almitra Patel versus the Union of India and
Others (1996).
recycling. Providers, users and the local author-
Dr Wadhera's contentions were that 'the MCD [Municipal Corporation of Delhi] ity will always be included. Some other
and the NDMC [New Delhi Municipal Council] had been totally remiss in the performance stakeholders are not that obvious, nor do they
of their statutory duties to scavenge and clean Delhi City', violating the citizens' constitu- think of themselves as involved in waste,
tional rights to a clean environment. This resulted in the 1998 Bio-Medical Waste
(Management and Handling) Rules, as well as dramatic moments in court, when top munici-
although they are certainly users of a waste
pal functionaries were summoned to explain their non-performance. Such public removal service. These unrecognized stakehold-
humiliation increased the need to find a new way out and privatization began to be consid- ers include professional associations, churches
ered seriously. and religious institutions; healthcare facilities,
Almitra Patel filed her PIL 'to protect India's peri-urban soil and water, and the
health of its urban citizens through hygienic practices for waste management, processing
and sport and social clubs; schools, universities,
and disposal'. The petition hastened the creation of the influential 2000 Solid Waste educational and research institutions, engineer-
(Management and Handling) Rules. A famous statement made by the judge related to the ing and planning departments, and the
urban poor. He declared: 'Rewarding an encroacher on public land with an alternative free consultancies that serve them; and the many
site is like giving a reward to a pickpocket for stealing.' This aptly reflected the trend in
courts to criminalize the poor, legitimizing their exclusion from the gaze of policy.
sub-groups of waste generators and service
Given the influence of the courts in Delhi, this trend filtered to several levels and users, including market stallholders, kiosks,
was, in part, responsible for the institutionalized exclusion of informal-sector players in hotels, restaurants, sport clubs, hospitals,
Delhi. The rules emphasize the need for recycling. However, they do not embed informal- hydroelectric companies, transport operators,
sector rights.
and schools and kindergartens.
The integrated sustainable waste management governance features in the reference cities
The main service users are households and Recycling facility of
one of the waste-
commercial and institutional waste generators, picker co-operatives
including most of those mentioned above. Non- in Belo Horizonte,
governmental organizations (NGOs) and
© SLU, Belo Horizonte
community-based organizations (CBOs) are
important as representatives of wider sections of
the user community; but they may also have a
separate role as private-sector providers. Trade
and professional associations and chambers of
commerce have a similar representational func-
tion for businesses and institutions, as do labour over in recent decades, partly due to mismanage-
unions and syndicates for workers. ment, corruption and mafia involvement in trash
Both the informal and formal private-sector pickup, but also because of Neapolitans' refusal to
actors are, or may wish to become, service sort their trash.'2 Other contributing factors
providers in waste collection, commodities traders included authorities arguing with each other and
in recycling, and/or agricultural producers who not involving local citizens and other key stake-
process and sell compost and other materials in holders in the decision-making process. This
the agricultural value chain. resulted, among other things, in a situation where
Private-sector recyclers in both formal and it became impossible to site new disposal facilities
informal sectors are often recycling a significant because the levels of trust between authorities
proportion of the city's waste – probably as much and citizens were so low.
as 20 per cent.1 The private recycling sector also User inclusivity is roughly divided into
includes commodity traders and their industrial several sub-categories, which include:
customers for recycled materials; they form the
industrial supply chain, which also includes manu- • consultation, communication and involve-
facturers, retailers and others who supply ment of users, both in decision-making, and
products that end up in the municipal waste in doing for themselves in relation, for exam-
stream. ple, to home composting and waste
■ Inclusivity and equity for users prevention;
• participatory and inclusive planning and
Equity of service means that all users – or, said
system design, which includes inclusivity in
another way, all waste generators – need to have
siting facilities;
their waste removed regularly and reliably and
• institutionalizing inclusivity, for example,
disposed of safely. It also means that all resi-
feedback mechanisms, client surveys, and
dents have the streets swept and litter removed –
solid waste forums and 'platforms'.
or that there is an agreement that they do this
themselves for their own communities. And ■ Inclusivity for providers and economic
providing a regular collection and sweeping serv- actors
ice depends on there being a safe and In some countries the local authorities have an
agreed-upon place to put the collected waste. automatic monopoly on providing waste services,
Naples provides a case study to illustrate and no private businesses are allowed to partici-
this last statement. The waste management serv- pate. In other countries, the private sector is the
ice in Naples broke down in early 2008, with only actor providing service provision. In both of
waste piling up in the streets because all of the these cases it is the local authority – acting in
region's landfills were full and the collectors had the context of national legislation – that sets the
nowhere to take the waste. According to one press institutional stage and has the end responsibility.
report: 'Naples has been choked by waste over and An inclusivity focus challenges exclusive busi-
Solid Waste Management in the World's Cities
ness models and questions the need for restricted York, who is collecting waste using the family
access to the economic activities in waste donkey cart, tractor or truck, and being paid
management. directly by clients; or a woman in Delhi, India,
Inclusive business models allow and enable going door to door with a handcart collecting
non-government stakeholders to initiate waste- waste from 100 households per day, and who
related activities; they invite or legalize makes her living from the fee she charges and
economic participation of formal private-sector from the materials she separates. In sanitation,
firms, informal entrepreneurs, CBOs, NGOs and ISPs include 'frogs' who operate manual latrine-
other non-state actors. Such models have labels and puisard-emptying services, or day labourers
such as private-sector participation (PSP); who clean drains and gutters. In some countries
public–private partnerships (PPPs); pro-poor there are informal street sweepers, usually
PPPs (5-Ps); joint ventures (JVs); para-statal women, who work directly for households.
organizations, including a range of municipally Waste removal is not the only activity of
owned institutions and companies; informal inte- informal or semi-formal enterprises. Working for
gration or formalization initiatives; and the like. themselves and their clients, but without recogni-
Because of its prominence in the global tion or protection or supervision from the city
discourse on entrepreneurship, sanitation and authorities, literally millions of people collect
poverty alleviation, this Third Global Report has and recycle a significant proportion of the waste
a strong focus on provider inclusivity, specifically in the world's cities at no direct cost to taxpay-
in terms of opening or maintaining economic ers. Yet, all too frequently, the city authorities
opportunities for informal entrepreneurs to reject this activity, labelling it as illegitimate,
provide waste services and participate in recy- illegal or even as a crime.
cling. Provider inclusivity therefore covers: Informal recyclers represent a large and
growing stakeholder group in most low- and
• inclusivity in providing solid waste, sweep- middle-income countries – which is present, as
ing and cleaning services; well, in high-income countries and world-class
• inclusivity and protection of livelihoods cities and is reported to comprise as much as
related to valorizing materials – specifi- 1 per cent of the world's population.4 The 75,000
cally, formal and informal recycling and informal-sector recyclers in the six Deutsche
organic waste management. Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit
(GTZ) study cities5 recycle about 3 million tonnes
Informal service providers (ISPs) are private per year.6 Informal private recycling activity is
entrepreneurs who collect and remove waste and based on extraction of valuable materials from
excreta and who have private economic relations various waste streams (or their separate collec-
with waste generators. Informal-sector providers tion from generators), followed by upgrading and
of services are responsible for a significant trading the materials to industry or agriculture.
percentage of waste collection services in a wide In all of the reference cities, there is at least
range of cities and towns. In Lusaka, Zambia, for some recycling of metal or paper or plastic by the
example, informal service providers are responsi- private recycling sector, and in all cities except
ble for more than 30 per cent of all collection Adelaide and Rotterdam the informal sector is
coverage;3 in Bamako, Mali, they serve clients responsible for a significant amount of extrac-
too poor to pay the city-regulated fees of the tion. In many cities in low- and middle-income
Groupement d'Intérêt Économique (GIE) micro- countries there is also substantial valorization of
collectors. Think, for example, about a one-man organic waste for animal feed, and in high-
operation in La Ceiba, Honduras, or Ithaca, New income countries, for production of compost.
The integrated sustainable waste management governance features in the reference cities
Lucia Fernandez and Chris Bonner (WIEGO)
In 2005, the UK Department for Environment, waste prevention is practised at the household
Food and Rural Affairs' (Defra's) Waste and level; what the barriers and motivations are; and
Resources Evidence Programme (WREP) what options and measures exist to encourage
commissioned a comprehensive series of research waste prevention behaviour, either by engaging
projects on household waste prevention. This directly with households or through the products
pioneering body of research sought to understand and services provided to them (including waste
consumer behaviour in relation to household collection services).
waste prevention through investigating how Over 800 literature sources were identified,
different initiatives work in practice. This key of which 88 were selected for detailed review
sheet presents the findings from a comprehensive and 48 others for more summary review. An
synthesis review commissioned by Defra WREP international review drew on 106 sources. Target
in 2008 (from Brook Lyndhurst, the Social documents included reports to Defra and the UK
Marketing Practice and the Resource Recovery Waste and Resources Action Programme
Forum), which draws together not only the find- (WRAP), together with academic papers and key
ings from this research, but also the international pieces of practitioner research. The desk element
evidence base. was complemented by further evidence gathered
The review defined waste prevention as from stakeholders (through web surveys, tele-
including strict avoidance, reduction at source (e.g. phone interviews and workshops).
through home composting) and reuse (where The key finding – given the breadth and
products are reused for their original purpose). complexity of waste prevention behaviour in the
Recycling was excluded. The review set out to light of an extensive literature review and in the
answer questions about the extent to which light of considerable international experience – is
that a coherent basket of measures will be required
if waste prevention activity is to increase.
From a householder point of view, the review
identified that there is no single activity involved
in 'waste prevention' since it involves not one but
many behaviours. On the basis of reported
People attending a
home composting surveys, these behaviours have very different
clinic organized by levels of participation, with one source estimat-
the municipality in
Dorset ing that up to 60 per cent of the public does at
© Dorset County Council least one of them, at least some of the time.
The integrated sustainable waste management governance features in the reference cities
Detailed data is provided for each behaviour in ture. These included operational difficulties
the technical report and related modules.1 (funding, capacity, logistics), difficulties on the
The literature reveals a general hierarchy consumer side (attitudes towards second-hand
in the popularity of performing waste prevention goods, lack of knowledge), regulatory issues
behaviours, from donating goods to charity at the (concerning, for example, the relative price of
top, through small reuse behaviours around the waste treatment options) and institutional issues
home, to activities that involve changes in (notably the often poor relationship between
consumption habits at the bottom. stakeholders at the local level). The main oppor-
Barriers to engaging householders in waste tunities for improving performance are to ensure
prevention behaviour operate at both a societal more strategic planning for reuse in local author-
and individual level. At the societal level, modern ity services, and to foster better coordination
consumer culture is antipathetic to many of the and joint working between public bodies and the
behaviours required for household waste preven- third sector. The review suggested that proper
tion to occur, particularly by conferring status rewards and incentives for reuse activity (e.g.
through the acquisition of 'stuff'. Stemming from paying reuse credits or a higher cost of landfill
this, the public seems genuinely confused about compared to the costs involved in reuse) also
what 'waste prevention' means, and there is a need to be in place.
general tendency to think that it is equivalent to The review examined literature that
recycling, and no more. The recycling norm is reported the impacts or potentials (based on
now so well developed that it is often hard for scenarios) of various policy measures designed to
people to think beyond this. influence either household behaviour directly or
A key opportunity to engage the public in the products and services provided to them. The
waste prevention activity is through campaigns international review suggested that it is the
at both local and national level. Campaigns can overall package of policy measures and how they
comprise a mix of interventions and are not complement each other that is the key to
restricted merely to communications. Local successful waste prevention. The package tends
authorities and stakeholders think that more
consolidated evidence is needed on two fronts:
what interventions and approaches work; and
what communication messages should be used.
This evidence will need to be collected from
future campaigns, not from past work, because
historic data is often weak.
On the products and services side, the
review focused on three aspects: reuse infra-
structure and the role of third-sector
organizations within it; retail development of
product refills; and the provision of a service to
substitute for appliance ownership (e.g. provision
of laundry, garden, DIY services, etc.) on new
housing developments (referred to as 'product
service systems'). The first of these would
appear to have particular potential to contribute
to greater prevention of waste. Organizing activities
Many barriers were identified in relation to around recycling for
the further development of a reuse infrastruc-
© Dorset County Council
Solid Waste Management in the World's Cities
charged with identifying gaps in the evidence.
The principal gap – identified in both the litera-
ture and by stakeholders – is robust and
comprehensive quantitative data. This applies to
almost all aspects of household waste prevention
and the situation is probably not dissimilar to
that which existed in the early days of recycling.
The challenge, now, will be to put in place
systems that can capture evidence as it is gener-
ated from new local interventions; to develop
best practice evidence from leading local authori-
ties; and to continue to investigate key topics at
strategic level (e.g. extended product warranties;
product life-cycle impacts; waste arising and
collection arrangements; consumer attitudes and
Promoting smart to combine the following: prevention targets;
shopping outside behaviours to particular waste prevention activi-
local shops producer responsibility; householder charging;
ties; and so on).
© Dorset County Council public-sector funding for pilot projects; collabora-
Stakeholders, in particular, want evidence
tion between public-, private- and third-sector
of what actually works on the ground to promote
organizations; and intense public awareness/
waste prevention and what outcomes (weight,
communications campaigns.
carbon and costs) can be expected from different
The review used the available evidence to
measures. Work is still required, too, in order to
estimate the potential of these and other policy
ensure that sensitive and effective monitoring
measures in the UK (in terms of million tonnes
and evaluation mechanisms are in place to
per annum). For local-level interventions,
gather the evidence that will be needed for the
evidence from WRAP in the UK suggests that if
development of the required basket of future
the target is tonnage reduction through waste
policy measures at local and national level.
prevention, then the priorities should be to focus
on food waste, home composting and bulky
In addition to identifying options for NOTE
enhancing waste prevention, the review was 1 See http://randd.defra.gov.uk/.
The integrated sustainable waste management governance features in the reference cities
It helps if there is only one department or both earn. The largest number of cities could not
section responsible for solid waste within the or did not report this. From the cities that
municipality. In Belo Horizonte, Brazil, the devel- reported, it is notable that Bengaluru and Delhi
opment of the Waste and Citizenship Movement in India describe a large contingent of people
was strengthened by having a designated waste working in the informal sector. Quezon City in
management agency Superintendência de the Philippines also has many informal recyclers;
Limpeza Urbana (SLU) representing the munici- but they have been partially formalized. Other
pality in the construction of a new waste cities, which report large numbers of informals
management agenda for the city. This was but do not have an estimate of the numbers,
further consolidated when by municipal law a include, for the informal recycling sector, Dhaka,
Department of Social Mobilization was created Kunming, Varna and Managua, and for informal
with the SLU whose prime responsibilities are service providers, Lusaka and Bamako.
environmental education and provision of techni- Discussions with city profilers suggest that there
cal advice to waste-pickers' organizations and are informal recyclers active as well in San
other community-based organizations partnered Francisco, Curepipe and Sousse.
with the SLU.
■ User inclusivity: Consultation,
■ Information inclusivity communication and involvement of users
One of the most common failures in modernizing Changing or modernizing the waste system
waste management systems is a failure to under- implies changing people's habitual behaviours. In
stand how the system is already working. a city in a low- or middle-income country seeking
Understanding how the system works will to expand service coverage, this may mean
increase the chances of success in introducing persuading people to put their waste in a house-
sustainable changes in waste management, hold or communal container rather than dumping
improving performance and satisfying users. it in the street. In Northern Europe, it's about
Time pressure on planning or consulting bringing e-waste to the EPR depot rather than
may result in too little time spent on investiga- storing it in the closet or putting it in the resid-
tion; foreign consultants may use a standard ual waste bin. They seem different, but the
approach with no time for understanding the structure is the same: the users and providers
local situation, and the local members of a team, have to agree on new practices that change busi-
who know something, may not know everything. ness as usual. It is for this reason that involving
For this reason it is critical to include a baseline the service users is critical to the success of any
that looks at the behaviours and relationships of waste management system.
providers and users, at strengths and weak- One of the key reasons for authorities to
nesses of what is already occurring, and at endorse an inclusive approach, involving all
opportunities for improvement that build on stakeholders from the beginning, is to avoid prob-
strengths and fix weaknesses. lems later on. Establishing a platform and/or
A key focus of the city research is on the developing the strategic plan in a participatory
role of the informal sector in service provision manner provide a solid foundation of socio-politi-
and recycling. A key good practice is examining, cal dialogue. With a clear and transparent
first, what the situation is before making approach, and the political commitment to open
changes and even before planning. So the data up the decision-making process, the final results
collection instruments asked the cities to provide are left open, giving the decisions back to the
a process flow diagram, and to use this to report people. It is thus possible to move from argument
on the number of people in both formal and infor- to implementation.
mal waste and recycling sectors, the tonnes that A good service is one that people will use
they collected, and the average daily wages that and be willing to pay for, something that is more
Solid Waste Management in the World's Cities
likely if they have been involved in its design and neither having legal measures related to partici-
have had something to say about the planning. pation in planning processes or the presence of
Moreover, providing a good collection service to participation platforms.
slum areas as well as middle-class districts is In some cities, there is strong stakeholder
more than just an equity issue – infectious participation without the presence of supporting
diseases or an economic blight will affect the legal measures. Moshi, Tanzania, is a good exam-
whole city. ple of stakeholder participation, and dialogue
The Waste and Citizenship Movement in and communication between the municipality
Brazil is a grassroots approach to inclusivity that and citizens, as well as CBOs. A stakeholder plat-
started in Belo Horizonte. Brazil has received form has been active since 1999. In Moshi the
recognition as a global leader in good practices following aspects of user inclusivity are reported:
promoting inclusivity both for users and
providers. In the reference cities, user inclusivity, • commitment by the municipal council and
also called community participation, is a key dialogue with citizens and other stakehold-
feature in Adelaide, Tompkins County, Ghorahi, ers;
Bamako, Bengaluru, Cañete and, to a lesser • learning by doing: practising stakeholder
extent, in Delhi, Rotterdam and San Francisco. dialogue and a pilot project with a private
In all the cities, it is related to consultation with contractor; initiatives to engage CBOs;
citizens, to involvement of stakeholders in plan- recognition of their status; and
ning and to the presence of user feedback • active stakeholder participation in the form
mechanisms. of discussion forums, stakeholder platforms
Table 5.1 shows two complementary indica- and involvement in decision-making.
tors of user participation and inclusivity in the
■ Inclusivity in planning and siting
reference cities. The cities are grouped according
Policy-makers and practitioners around the
to the number of platforms, forums, etc. (many;
world know how difficult it is to develop the
few or one; none) and as to whether there are
ISWM sector. An inclusive planning process has
legal measures in place to ensure participation in
proven to be a key to success. The most compre-
the (waste) planning process.
hensive guidance for inclusive strategic waste
First, in relation to participation in plan-
management planning was published by the
ning processes, an assessment was made of
World Bank in 2001,7 and has since been used in
indicators as a presence of stakeholder platforms
many locations. The Strategic Planning Guide for
in the reference cities, as well as the existence of
Municipal Solid Waste Management (SPG) was
legal measures for planning and participation.
one of the outputs of an international donor and
In Bamako, Quezon City, Belo Horizonte,
practitioner platform called the CWG, which
Managua and Delhi, specifically, there are legal
stands for Collaborative Working Group on Solid
measures that obligate, establish, promote or
Waste Management in Low- and Middle-Income
support participation, and at the same time these
Table 5.1 Countries.8 The SPG was written by
cities have a rich diversity of participation mech-
Participation and Environmental Resources Management (ERM)-
inclusivity in the
anisms in the form of platforms and forums.
UK with contributions from many international
reference cities Cities such as Dhaka and Kunming have reported
organizations and practitioners working on the
issue around the world.
Legal measures for planning and participation The SPG is based on a stepwise planning
Platforms, forums, etc. Yes No
process, where stakeholder working groups are
Many Belo Horizonte, Bamako, Delhi, Quezon City, Managua Bengaluru
Few, one Adelaide, Cañete, Ghorahi, Rotterdam Moshi entrusted to research options and propose
None Lusaka Dhaka, Kunming specific aspects of the planned new system. The
The integrated sustainable waste management governance features in the reference cities
SPG emphasizes the need for 'facilitators' to
Box 5.3 Participatory urban waste planning in Vietnam
manage a complex process of discussion and
In 1998, participatory planning in the urban waste management sector was tried out for the
debate between stakeholders. The outputs from
first time in Ha Long and Camp Pha, a beautiful United Nations Educational, Scientific and
the process are a 'strategy' and 'action plan', Cultural Organization (UNESCO) World Heritage location in the north-east of Vietnam.
with the strategy focusing on those issues which All of the major stakeholders involved in and influencing urban waste management
stakeholders can agree on, and the action plan were invited to join the process in a structured series of workshops in order to prepare a
provincial waste management strategy. There were no prearranged results, and the final
dealing with the often more contentious meas-
form of the plan depended purely on the results of the process.
ures required to implement the strategy, such as The initiative was a great success and resulted in the creation of a fresh approach
specific technologies and sites for waste infra- to waste management planning. The World Bank Strategic Planning Guide methodology was
structure. born.
The assessment steps in the SPG were used
as the basis for strategic planning in Bengaluru,
disposal, the stakes for participation increase
where it served to unite the activities of the
because very few people want a large new land-
Swabhimana platform with the high-profile activ-
fill site next to their home. Inclusivity also means
ities of the Bangalore Agenda Task Force
transparency in communicating about what the
(BATF), as well as in Bamako. In both places it
risks are and making agreements for sharing the
contributed to and strengthened technical
risks as well as the benefits. Inclusivity in risk-
outcomes and the institutionalization of inclusiv-
sharing – especially in relation to siting disposal
ity in their respective platform structures.
facilities – connects users, providers and the
Further testing of the strategic planning
local authorities in one set of governance
guide was funded by the UK Department for
processes and social agreements.
International Development (DFID), and resulted
The traditional top-down approach to siting
in a series of practical Waste Keysheets9 to assist
has been for the city to hire consultants to find
in stakeholder consensus building, and with
the 'best' site, which is usually based on techni-
implementing the initial steps in the planning
cal criteria with a focus on geology and
process. Training materials were prepared as
geography. People living near candidate sites
part of a later World Bank–Mediterranean
organize themselves into protest groups, and
Environmental Technical Assistance Programme
'battle lines' are drawn. The city is labelled as
(METAP) project.10
non-democratic, the protesters are written off as
■ Inclusivity in siting facilities 'yet another example of NIMBY' – that is, 'not in
Modernization of waste management includes my backyard'. Once that has happened, effective
developing environmentally sound facilities. A decision-making ends, rhetoric escalates and
key part of an ISWM solution, at least in the agreements become close to impossible. Even
medium term, will be somewhere between a fully when siting is based on technically correct
fledged sanitary landfill and a modest but well- reasoning, and engineers carry out state-of-the-
operated controlled disposal facility. Upgrading art environmental and social impact
an existing disposal site may be an appropriate assessments, the results may still be perceived as
first step; but at some point, most cities will have biased and politically tainted.
to take the decision as to where to site a new One specific area related to user inclusivity
landfill. Economies of scale are likely to favour a in planning processes is inclusivity in siting
regional facility, so issue