Informal Waste Management

This is a page on informal waste management.

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Ethiopia

This converging formal and informal waste activities in Addis creates a complex system that needs to be more efficient to meet the demands of a fast-growing city. 

Source: AccLab Blog

This excerpt is also potentially relevant to: Informal Activities

The city annually produces 400K + tons of waste; 70% is collected through the formal solid waste management system that is administered by the city government while the remaining 30% gets dumped into rivers, kept in informal local dumps or lost in the inefficiency of the waste management system. 

Source: AccLab Blog

Nepal

In our journey of sensing the complex issues that communities have, we found numerous problems related to urban municipalities/cities in Nepal, especially in the capital city, Kathmandu. Whether it is improper drainage system to mind-boggling air pollution, we, unfortunately, have them all. Not to forget to mention, solid waste management is another concern, wherein the solid waste generation is increasing annually in Kathmandu ( source:The Kathmandu Post, 2019). These are few of the many issues that are in the dire straits. Lab in Nepal, in the past one year, undertook an experiment on behavioral change of informal waste workers in partnership with an INGO called Medicines du monde and another experiment on transforming misused public spaces into green public parks in partnership with Lalitpur Metropolitan City and a team of artists and architects called Vriksha Foundation. The pocket park project was a social initiative that brought together the local community, private and public sector on a single platform to mitigate the problem of lack of open spaces caused by unplanned urbanization by turning a barren and neglected public space into a pocket park that is disable friendly and inclusive for all.  However, there’s a lot to do and unplanned urbanization is a very complex issue.

Source: AccLab Blog

This excerpt is also potentially relevant to: Informal Workers

Tanzania

According to the city’s official records, Mwanza city generated 357 Tonnes of solid waste per day, of which 70% comprised organic waste. Despite relatively good collection system, it is faced with numerous challenges including shortage of sufficient transport facilities, low investment in collection system, lack of recycling systems, emerging electronic waste problem and absence of system-based approach for disaggregating solid waste into different components. Furthermore, there is minimal community awareness on good solid waste management practices also unwillingness of some users to pay service fee for refuse collection. Moreover, rapid population increase and urban concentration, financial and technological limitations, fast increasing informal settlements and illegal dumping of waste are among top challenges. At the time of writing the City Council had contracted four private companies (aggregators) and 5 community-based organisations dealing with waste collection.

Source: AccLab Blog

This excerpt is also potentially relevant to: Informal Settlements

Vietnam

Through a collective intelligence approach to GIS mapping visualization, it is clear that informal waste workers not only thoroughly cover waste collection in the city (estimated >80% of geographical area coverage) but play a significant role in the overall recovery of recyclable waste, with an estimated total collection between 7.5-9% (taking both IWWs and collection centers into consideration) compared to the total volume brought to the landfill per day (approximately 1000 tons per day) during low volume COVID-19 times (up to 10% more during normalized times).  Da Nang city has set a target of reaching a 15% waste recycling rate by 2025, from our rough estimate the informal waste sector is already contributing significantly to the city’s overall goal, but this contribution is not always recognized in the current policies. If the estimate holds true, these figures have a major impact on municipal waste management, and cities around the globe with an informal waste sector should take notice. The waste that is being recovered would either likely end in the City’s landfill or the environment (including the oceans). But the informal sector workers often face ostracization in society due to the stigma of working with waste. In our research, we found great examples around the world of how informal workers were integrated as an asset to the municipal authority such as our sister Lab in Paraguay, the catadore model in Brazil, or the ENDA model of Independent Waste Collectors in Ho Chi Minh City. We hope to see more emergent models like these that integrate and recognize informal sector workers' true values -- our city’s heroes in the fight against waste pollution.

Source: AccLab Blog

This excerpt is also potentially relevant to: Informal Sectors, Informal Workers

An established network is the main work resource for any informal waste worker, as Ms. Hien mentioned, “[Once] I gathered enough business contacts to open [my collection center],” showing the significance of networks.  As waste picking is not exactly a highly desirable job for most people, IWWs only enter the business with the advising of a trusted contact. While looking for random waste on the street is a common method practiced by most IWWs, key contacts are the result of years of experience working in the sector that helps lighten the workload of IWWs. On the other hand, in rural areas where there is too little waste source, IWWs and local collection centers directly compete against each other to buy waste from the local households and businesses.

Source: AccLab Blog

This excerpt is also potentially relevant to: Informal Workers

How many IWWs are there in a given area? How do informal waste workers find and collect waste?

Source: AccLab Blog

This excerpt is also potentially relevant to: Informal Workers

These seemingly simple questions are actually quite difficult to answer as most IWWs operate independently and very little data are available from official sources. We conducted this study to map out the geographical activities of informal waste workers, collection centers, and waste hotspots to provide data on their behaviors and habits and ultimately come up with appropriate recommendations for the city. Overall we identified and surveyed a total of 221 locations including 165 dumpsites and 56 aggregators in surveyed areas. We then visualized them on the GiS map and categorized them by different types to give an overall impression of the area and provide actionable intel to relevant organizations. In general, we found that IWWs typically concentrate in areas with collection centers/scrap shops to facilitate trading and transportation.What is the typical profile of an informal waste worker in Viet Nam?

Source: AccLab Blog

This excerpt is also potentially relevant to: Informal Workers

The informal sector is Viet Nam’s largest contributor towards recycling and reuse of waste in the entire country. Stories just like Ms. Hien’s are common and as one of the top five contributors to plastic waste entering the ocean, Viet Nam needs innovative ways to tackle waste pollution. The informal sector is an active, yet under-used, often misunderstood part of the waste value chain. Toward this end, our UNDP Accelerator Lab teamed up with Evergreen Labs, a solution-driven, project development organization to perform an in-depth study aiming to better understand the informal waste ecosystem with the hope to shed light on their roles and impact. Taking inspiration from Dietmar Offenhuber’s research uncovering Brazil's informal waste system through GPS data, we conducted two mapping exercises in Hoa Vang (rural district) and Ngu Hanh Son (urban district) as an experiment to gather ethnographic, geospatial and socio-economic data, ultimately help to unpack the nuanced of people working in this sector. During this research, 40 informal waste worker surveys were conducted, 9 routes tracked via GPS, and 39 coverage maps drawn across two districts in Da Nang. The aim was to tap into the collective intelligence of the waste workers guided by NESTA’s Collective Intelligence Playbook to shed light on the informal waste sector.The current waste streams, collection, and disposal mechanisms in Viet Nam involve various players from both the formal and informal sectors. Household waste is not source-separated, meaning recyclable waste is mixed with organic waste and other contaminants. Typically this waste is left on the curbside in front of businesses or households directly for collection or placed at a designated dumpsite (which can either be municipally managed or not).  The informal waste workers (IWWs) are at the front line of recovery and are often seen rummaging through waste to collect all tradeable items like cardboard, metal, and plastic bottles. Once their bike is full, they bring their waste to their nearest collection point, just like Ms. Hien’s, to do their daily trading. Collection centers then consolidate and trade with larger aggregators before the waste gets pre-processed and ready for recycling. This research not only confirmed this value chain but made some interesting discoveries along the way. 

Source: AccLab Blog

This excerpt is also potentially relevant to: Informal Sectors, Informal Ecosystems, Hybrid Models

As the sun rises in Hoà Liên commune in Da Nang city , the day begins for 50-year-old Ms. Nguyen Thi Hien. She starts the day around 7 am and she doesn’t return home for another 12 hours at least. First, she hastens to her nearby rice paddy fields, where she is a farmer tending to her crops. Once her fields have been looked after, she bikes over to her main occupation, her small collection center where she recovers, consolidates, and trades recyclable waste. “Before I opened this collection center, I used to be an informal waste worker as well. After going collecting for a few years, I gathered enough business contacts to open this place,” Ms. Hien proudly states. She sorts waste by hand, separating by type of waste mainly distinguishing between paper, metal, and certain types of plastic. That is if she’s not answering the phone, dealing with traders, or noting transactions down in her notebook. It’s a job she has done for over a decade and, “I love my work,” Ms. Hien smiles. Ms. Hien is among thousands of ve chai (informal waste workers) in Viet Nam working around the clock to find value in discarded items --  “a person's trash is another person's treasure” as the old proverb says.

Source: AccLab Blog

This excerpt is also potentially relevant to: Informal Workers