Informal Waste Research Articles

Waste pickers and cities

The occupation of waste picker has taken on new importance as a livelihood, especially since the last global economic downturn. Increasingly, waste pickers are being recognized for their valuable contributions to urban sustainability and development. Drawing from scholarship on waste pickers, and findings from a recent study conducted in five cities across three continents, this paper discusses the environmental and economic contributions of informal waste pickers to cities. This paper argues for the re-conceptualization of solid waste management systems that integrate waste pickers as partners, as key to building just, inclusive and livable cities for all. It also presents a specific model in which informal waste workers are integrated as key stakeholders as one example of best practice in this area, thus contributing to current discussions on integrated and inclusive solid waste models.

Resource recovery from waste by Roma in the Balkans: A case study from Zavidovici (BiH).

Roma communities represent the main involved actors in the informal activities in the Balkan regions, especially because the state does not formally recognize them as formal inhabitants. The Roma community in Zavidovici, despite being resident since the beginning of the 20th century, is still considered a marginalized and vulnerable group. They are actively involved in and dependent on the informal solid waste sector. Waste collection is a 'family business', a kind of self-employment and the main source of income for households. Informal recyclers have a central role in the solid waste management system and they recover a significant amount of materials, especially iron, copper, brass, lead and exhausted batteries. Despite the negative fluctuations of the raw material prices, because of the international economic crisis, informal recyclers remain dependent on the waste recycling sector. They are crucial actors in the value chain of recyclables: though they cannot access the final buyers of recyclables, they provide more than 50% of the market to the middle dealers in the Zenica-Doboj Canton. This research activity consists of a deep socio-economic analysis of the informal recyclers' community living in Zavidovici city. In particular, this paper describes the composition and welfare status of informal recyclers' households, the role of informal recyclers in waste collection, the geographical coverage and the related pattern of waste picking, types, volumes and price fluctuations of recyclable materials, and the middle dealers involved in the informal recycling system.

Inclusive municipal solid waste management policy in Nigeria: engaging the informal economy in post-2015 development agenda

ABSTRACTThe problem of municipal solid waste has remained intractable in Nigeria despite the state’s central role in municipal solid waste management (MSWM). Policy and reforms of the MSWM system have invariably excluded the informal economy, with this exclusion frequently reinforced by uncritical implementation of neo-liberal development policies. Yet, the informal economy fortuitously remains active in solid waste collection, recycling, and disposal. This article is the aggregate outcome of an 8-year multi-stakeholder engagement in MSWM in Nigerian cities. It draws on insights from first-hand qualitative engagement with informal waste workers, interviews with key stakeholders, policy documents, and relevant literature to situate the Nigerian informal waste economy within current international development discourse. While highlighting the implications of social acceptance and inclusion of the waste economy in post-2015 MSWM and development policy, the study notes the lack of an articulate policy on MSWM in Nigeria and canvasses a specific policy to integrate the ubiquitous informal waste economy in MSWM. The paper suggests that inclusion per sé is central to the sustainable development goals (SDGs), and argues that an inclusive MSWM policy in Nigeria is desirable as it maps onto the SDGs which aim to improve lives in the post-2015 development era.

Characterization of urban waste management practices in developing Asian countries: A new analytical framework based on waste characteristics and urban dimension

This paper characterizes municipal solid waste (MSW) management practices in developing Asia, with a focus on low and middle-income countries. The analysis that is conducted supports a proposed framework that maps out the trends observed in the region in relation to two parameters, waste compositions and urban dimension, which was prepared based on a set of national and urban case studies. The management of MSW in developing Asian countries is driven, first and foremost, by a public health imperative: the collection and disposal of waste in order to avoid the spread of disease vectors from uncollected waste. This comes, however, at a high cost, with local government authorities in these countries spending up to 50% of their budgets in the provision of these services. Little or no value is derived from waste, which is typically seen as a liability and not as a resource that can be harnessed. On the other hand, in many cities in developing Asia there is an informal sector that ekes out a living from the recovery of recyclable materials found in waste. Members of this “informal waste sector” are especially active in areas that are not served by formal waste collection systems, such as slums or squatter areas. A distinctive element shared among many cities in developing Asian countries concerns the composition of the municipal solid waste. MSW in those countries tends to be richer in biodegradable organic matter, which usually accounts for more than 50% of the total waste composition, suggesting that biological methods are more appropriate for treating this organic fraction. Conversely, thermal combustion technologies, which are extensively applied in high-income countries, are technically and economically challenging to deploy in light of the lower calorific value of waste streams which are rich in organics and moisture. Specific approaches and methods are therefore required for designing adequate waste management systems in developing Asian countries. In addition, despite some common characteristics shared among cities in developing Asia, their specific circumstances can significantly vary, even within the same country, calling for the need for context-specific waste management approaches. Set against this background, this paper proposes a guiding framework in the form of a matrix that maps out approaches observed in the management of municipal solid waste in cities of developing Asian countries as a function of the city dimension, share of organics on waste streams, and wealth generated by the city. The cities of Surabaya (Indonesia), Bangalore (India), Quy Nhon (Viet Nam), and Matale (Sri Lanka) are showcased as good practices in the region in the management of solid waste, with their experiences used to illustrate the framework laid out in the matrix.

The Waste-Value Dialectic

Capitalist value making is underwritten by the production and disposal of waste through a complex, often invisible economy of informal waste recycling. This infra-economy is anchored by nodes that process and circulate variegated forms of waste generated in cities and their adjoining hinterlands. Bholakpur, in the city of Hyderabad, India, is one such place. There are hundreds like it scattered around the country. Even as they perform the double function of reproducing the urban economy while inoculating it from the injurious effects of its own detritus, places like Bholakpur and the people who work and reside there are continuously abjected by civil society's propertied classes, which view them with anxiety and loathing, as a source of crime, nuisance and detriment. Thus, “waste” as concept-matter but also a locus where labor and ecology meet is a neglected but powerful site for a critique of both postcolonial capitalism and contemporary urbanization in countries like India.

Solid waste management in Bogotá: the role of recycling associations as investigated through SWOT analysis

In emerging economies, recycling provides an opportunity for cities to increase the lifespan of sanitary landfills, to reduce the costs of solid waste management, to decrease environmental problems from waste treatment by reincorporating waste into the productive cycle and to protect and develop the livelihoods of citizens who work as informal waste pickers. However, few studies have analysed the possibilities of and strategies for integrating the formal and informal sectors in solid waste management for the benefit of both. This integration is the key, especially in developing countries, to understanding how the recycling population can develop a business despite their social and economic limitations. The aim of this study was to perform a strength, weakness, opportunity and threat (SWOT) analysis of three recycling associations in Bogota with the aim of examining and understanding the recycling situation from the perspective of members of the informal sector in their transition to becoming authorised waste providers. This issue has rarely been studied in the context of developing countries. The data used in the analysis are derived from multiple sources, including a literature review, Bogota’s recycling database, focus group meetings, governmental reports, national laws and regulations and interviews with key stakeholders. The results of this study show that as the primary stakeholders, the formal and informal waste management sectors can identify the internal and external conditions of recycling in Bogota. Several strategies were designed based on the SWOT analysis. The participation of recycling associations is important in the design and application of waste policy, the consolidation of recycling through an effective business model, promotional programmes for social inclusion and the development of new transformation processes and technologies to valorise recycling materials. In conclusion, recycling associations can become authorised waste providers through a profitable business that increases recycling rates to create a productive process from waste during the generation of new materials and to decrease environmental problems while improving the welfare and living conditions of recyclers. These findings are important for Bogota to advance and promote recycling as a key strategy for integrated sustainable waste management in the city.

Building capabilities among e-scrappers in informal electronic waste management: the case of the Nigerian e-scrappers

This study examines the capabilities of e-scrappers developed through the constant interaction with electronic waste (e-waste). Video-based interviews were conducted with 29 male e-scrappers in Edo and Lagos States, Nigeria. Data analysis reveals that over time, e-scrappers in Nigeria are driven by aspirations not only of financial security but also of societal acceptance and recognition. Progressively, they have developed capabilities such as effective extraction methods based on individual abilities, market demand and the presence of an active social network, which have had a significant impact on the choices of the developed capabilities.

Spatial assessment of soil contamination by heavy metals from informal electronic waste recycling in Agbogbloshie, Ghana.

ObjectivesThis study examined the spatial distribution and the extent of soil contamination by heavy metals resulting from primitive, unconventional informal electronic waste recycling in the Agbogbloshie e-waste processing site (AEPS) in Ghana.MethodsA total of 132 samples were collected at 100 m intervals, with a handheld global position system used in taking the location data of the soil sample points. Observing all procedural and quality assurance measures, the samples were analyzed for barium (Ba), cadmium (Cd), cobalt (Co), chromium (Cr), copper (Cu), mercury (Hg), nickel (Ni), lead (Pb), and zinc (Zn), using X-ray fluorescence. Using environmental risk indices of contamination factor and degree of contamination (Cdeg), we analyzed the individual contribution of each heavy metal contamination and the overall Cdeg. We further used geostatistical techniques of spatial autocorrelation and variability to examine spatial distribution and extent of heavy metal contamination.ResultsResults from soil analysis showed that heavy metal concentrations were significantly higher than the Canadian Environmental Protection Agency and Dutch environmental standards. In an increasing order, Pb>Cd>Hg>Cu>Zn>Cr>Co>Ba>Ni contributed significantly to the overall Cdeg. Contamination was highest in the main working areas of burning and dismantling sites, indicating the influence of recycling activities. Geostatistical analysis also revealed that heavy metal contamination spreads beyond the main working areas to residential, recreational, farming, and commercial areas.ConclusionsOur results show that the studied heavy metals are ubiquitous within AEPS and the significantly high concentration of these metals reflect the contamination factor and Cdeg, indicating soil contamination in AEPS with the nine heavy metals studied.

Socio-environmental entrepreneurship and the provision of critical services in informal settlements

This paper contributes to the understanding of processes by which small-scale entrepreneurs who provide household waste collection in informal settlements succeed in formalized co-production of such services. The paper draws on the social and solidarity economy and social and environmental entrepreneurship theoretical frameworks, which offer complementary understandings of diverse strategies to tackle everyday challenges. Two questions are addressed: How do informal waste collection initiatives get established, succeed and grow? What are the implications of this transition for the entrepreneurs themselves, the communities, the environmental governance system and the scholarship? A case study is presented, based on three waste picker entrepreneurs in Kisumu, Kenya, who have consolidated and expanded their operations in informal settlements but also extended social and environmental activities into formal settlements. The paper demonstrates how initiatives, born as community-based organizations, become successful social micro-enterprises, driven by a desire to address socio-environmental challenges in their neighbourhoods.

Role of different stakeholders in trading of reusable/recyclable urban solid waste materials: A case study

This study aimed to investigate the role of different actors/stakeholders in informal waste recycling/trading system in the Dehradun city, India. An extensive survey on waste recycling/trading system was conducted through a defined methodology and framework of material flow was prepared. Results suggested three operation levels of collection/segregation of recyclable waste articles: (i) household, commercial points and shops, (ii) community waste dumping points and, (iii) municipal waste dump site of the city. The major stakeholders in waste trading system of the city identified as: households, itinerant buyers (Pheriwala), waste pickers, middleman (small dealers), large dealers, and remanufacturing industries. A variety of direct value waste articles (e.g., old news papers and books/magazines, wooden furniture, cardboard/cartons, plastic scrap/polythene bags, iron and non-ferrous metal scrap, glass scrap, rubber, electrical/electronic articles) are being traded in this waste trading network and estimated quality of this material is about 362.4t per month. The end users in this network are poor house-dwellers and remanufacturing industries. Results suggest that remanufacturing industries are the main buyer of these direct-value materials (paper, iron, rubber, non-ferrous metals, empty liquor/wine bottles etc.). The sharing of benefit/margins by different stockholders in this waste trading system depends upon a variety of political, social and economic factors. The study revealed that informal waste recycling is not only a waste reduction practices but also creates opportunities for urban poors as livelihood earning. Informal waste cycling thus can be promoted as sustainable approach to design a community based solid waste management program for developing cities in low and middle income countries.

System dynamics model for the municipal solid waste management system in the metropolitan area of Medellín, Colombia

This paper analyses the management of municipal solid waste in the metropolitan area of Medellin (Colombia). The composition and production of solid waste, the collection system, the informal and formal sectors in the region, the different flows of materials and its final disposal, are some topics that have been considered. A basic model for the SWM system in the city has been developed based on the system dynamics methodology. With the help of the Vensim PLE software, it has been possible to simulate different scenarios, such as the implementation of the formalisation process of the informal waste pickers that are present in the city. The generation of waste for the residential sector in Aburra Valley is 49,115.2 ton/month, and only 12.5% of the solid waste produced is reintroduced into the production cycle. Part of this work is done by approximately 4,474 waste pickers, but only 10.63% of them are part of pre-cooperatives or cooperatives. The outcomes of the model for the geographical area allow to conclude that the inclusion of the informal sector in the municipal solid waste management system would imply huge benefits related to the social, economic and environmental aspects of the system.

Waste and well-being: a political economy of informal waste management and public policy in urban West Africa

The informal waste management (IWM) sector is often disparaged in Africa and suffers various degrees of social opprobrium from the public owing to the work being perceived as low status. The work i...

The work of waste: inside India's infra‐economy

My essay focuses on the marginalised people whose livelihoods depend on gathering, sorting, transporting and selling garbage in India's huge informal economy, livelihoods now challenged as municipal governments contract the recycling of waste to corporations. The evolving, bumpy geography of the waste economy creates permanent border areas of primitive accumulation and both devalorised and valorised people and places. I make a case for understanding informal sector activities, such as the work of transforming the city's detritus, as part of a vast infra‐economy and the varied forms of labour performed within heterogeneous value chains of waste transformation as infrastructural labour that produces what Marx called capital's ‘general’ and ‘external’ conditions of production. Through close examination of the spatiotemporal lattice of informal municipal solid waste recycling, I demonstrate how these economies are at once highly organised and brittle, with each node in their value chains subject to disruption by state and market forces. While relative opacity, labour intensity of tasks and dependence on embodied knowledge (metis), indeed a ‘bodily’ feel for space, give informal economies the capacity to resist external efforts to transform, subsume or eradicate them; lack of social security and employment protections also means that workers and micro‐enterprise owners within them inhabit the thin line between survival and failure, rendering them vulnerable to economic and political fluctuations. The upshot is that the labour of waste and other informal sector workers is critical for maintaining the quality of life desired by the well off in cities of the global South, but fails to get the recognition it deserves. Waste workers are poorly compensated, regularly stigmatised and frequently invisible in policy decisions. This is an enduring inequity that demands urgent correction.

Rent gap, fluid infrastructure and population excess in a gentrifying neighbourhood

Through a careful documentation of an ongoing struggle for sanitation infrastructure in a neighbourhood facing intense gentrifying pressure—namely, Mohammed Nagar slum in Hyderabad—this paper shows how incomplete and fluid infrastructures can become sites through which an excess population can be purged outright in order to rebuild neighbourhood character. Mohammed Nagar slum is located in the Bholakpur ward of Hyderabad. Bholakpur has been a major site for informal waste segregation, recycling and processing in the city and region for the past three decades at least. As different constituents of the fragmented community consolidate their claims through opportunities thrown up by crumbling infrastructures, some resist metabolic processes that attempt to reproduce direly needed infrastructures. Others, facing acute deprivation, have to choose between staying put and moving out. Gentrification processes arising from new rent gaps emerging in cities due to high-end infrastructures, such as metro rail and shopping complexes, can be brutal and can trigger mechanisms by which bodies are revalued as legitimate claimants or otherwise. Populations that were once all associated with waste reinvent themselves, including some who can make it, and purging others who decidedly cannot make it into the new neighbourhood.

Beyond urban vulnerability: interrogating the social sustainability of a livelihood in the informal economy of Nigerian cities

Aba is a politically volatile, economically vibrant but environmentally poor city that is a microcosm of social conditions in the Nigerian urban informal economy. Hence, this study interrogates the social sustainability of waste picking in the city, using a hybrid of political economy and sustainable livelihoods frameworks to explicate social conditions of labour in the waste economy in relation to state/institutional policies. A mixed-methods approach was utilised, and findings indicate that a cocktail of conditions affect waste picking. A rise in waste picking was noted to be in response to neoliberal economic policies which removed social safety nets. Juxtaposing green neoliberal political economy with waste picking in Nigeria, the paper queries the continued neglect of the social dimension of the sustainability debate in informal waste management (IWM), arguing that social sustainability can be compatible with IWM, a neglected component of the ‘new green economy’ of Nigerian cities.

Ingrained Inequalities? Deconstructing Gendered Spaces in the Informal Waste Economy of Nigerian Cities

As the debates on the definition, scope and applicability of the terms ‘informal sector’ and, in more recent years, the ‘informal economy’ continue, there is a growing interest in the heterogeneity, dynamism and complexity of the sector. This has necessitated a focus on internal differentiation and social relations of power within the informal economy. Gender plays an important role in shaping how men and women participate in the informal economy, while systematic inequalities between women and men are known to pervade many informal livelihoods. Informal Solid Waste Management (ISWM) is a major livelihood activity for the most vulnerable urban groups including women. Using a mix of primary and secondary data sources, this study examined the pattern of gender participation in Nigerian informal waste economy. It notes that the socio-political space in the Nigerian waste economy is dominated by males, to the virtual exclusion of females. Findings indicate that gender differentials and exclusion of women usually manifests, often from primordial socio-cultural influences. Being intimately tied to sheer physicality, waste picking is often characterized by palpable competitions, tensions and conflicts. However, the paper acknowledges the determination of women to overcome the limitations imposed on them by cultural norms and the ability to carve a niche in a male-dominated activity. In a broader context, the paper interrogates ramifications of gendered spaces in the global South. It argues that unequal participation is a corollary of gendered spaces and concludes that without gender equality, the vulnerability of female informal urban-based livelihoods increases.

Informal Electronic Waste Recycling in Pakistan

The aim of this thesis was to study governance aspects of informal electronic waste recycling and to provide better knowledge of the business in terms of structure, stakeholders, governance aspects ...

The Role of Informal Sector in Waste Management, A Case Study; Tafila-Jordan

Scavengers play a major role in the waste management process in developing countries. This study analyzed the informal recycling activities carried out by scavenger in the Tafila region of Jordan. The results show that scavengers have an important role in the informal solid waste management (SWM) especially in term of waste reduction, minimization and material recovery. Significant values from the scavenged material make the scavenging somewhat a profitable business for poor people and could track more in the future. Socially scavenging tends to be acceptable in the community, especially with the increasing of the poverty and employments rates and became more acceptable in rural areas as it is already in urban areas. Despite the low level of education, the awareness for the negative health effect from working with waste was very high. The organizing of the scavenger work is suggested, since it would improve their working environment, income and living conditions. Therefore it should increase their contribution significantly to resource recovery.

Power in waste: Conflicting agendas in planning for integrated solid waste management in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

The article analyses whether conditions are in place for an improved solid waste management system and for partnerships between the informal recycling sector and the city administration in Addis Ababa. The analysis is based on two cases: a planned integrated solid waste management system and the renewal of an informal waste market known as the Männ alleh/allesh tära. The author considers the agendas and strategies of both the city administration and the informal recycling sector, and how they are negotiated in the local context. She concludes that the city administration is interested in shaping a modern city with a high-tech solid waste system even though it will ignore informal actors. Although the informal actors have been willing to enter into a relationship with the city administration, they have only been given empty promises of support in pre-election times. Despite the political context in Addis Ababa having been advantageous for the city administration in terms of securing its interests, both upward accountability and the political culture formed the main obstacle in its efforts to achieve its objectives and goals of implementing a modern and improved solid waste system.

Solid Waste Management Practices in the Informal Sector of Gweru, Zimbabwe

This paper contributes to the debate on the role of the informal sector in solid waste management by examining the effectiveness of informal sector solid waste management practices in transforming waste into nonwaste in the city of Gweru in Zimbabwe. The study focused on 589 informal enterprises that were surveys using questionnaire interviews and focus group discussions with key informants. Analysis of solid waste management in the informal sector of Gweru has revealed that large amounts of waste are generated indicating poor material efficiency in the enterprises, especially in food market areas where huge amounts of biodegradable material and vegetable wastes are generated and disposed of haphazardly. Analysis of the key factors that include solid waste generation rates, collection frequencies and transportation, waste minimisation, and reduction practices showed that the current waste management system is unsustainable in the long run. The municipality of Gweru needs to provide more resources for financing, training, and manpower to enable effective provision of an environmentally friendly solid waste management system in the city, including the informal sector.