Chapter 2. Collection and recycling, the realm of the informal sector
Chapter 2. Collection and recycling, the realm of the informal sector
The effectiveness of a waste management system depends largely on the way that the waste is collected. The collection method influences not only waste recovery rates, but also the quality of end-of-life treatment (such as recycling). The extent of coverage of households by the collection service and the degree of upstream waste sorting in view of recovery and recycling constrain the effectiveness of the end-of-life treatment. The specificity of global South countries, however, is that the collection service does not reach all citizens in the same way. The vision of a public service such as that long provided in the global North, where collection is carried out exclusively by municipal actors (or their contractors), has shown its limits in the global South. In fact, none of the cities collects the totality of generated waste and none has mainstreamed a system for source-separation in view of recycling. On the other hand, informal actors play a key role in these cities – be they collectors of recyclable materials or primary collectors of all waste types. The innovations observed by the ORVA2D research project show that, in many cases, public actors endeavour to coordinate their action with that of informal actors, each time in different ways. After being marginalised and harassed for many years, these informal recovery actors now find themselves at the heart of the waste management process. The second chapter of this report thus seeks to understand the limits of municipal waste collection. It then goes on to show that primary collection of waste and the informal recovery of recyclables can constitute viable solutions in some situations.
I.
Inadequate municipal collection 1. Uneven collection rates within the cities
In all of the reference cities, we see that the rates of household waste collected by the municipality (or their contractors) are relatively good (over 70%) compared to the situation that prevailed as recently as ten years ago (Map 2). In the cities with greater financial resources, these rates fluctuate around 90% (Surabaya, Bogotá, Comas, Delhi) reaching even 100% for the wealthiest districts such as Surco (Lima). Only Antananarivo shows a lower collection rate of 55%. The main reason for this is the decentralised method of primary waste collection and recovery, which wipes a large part of the waste streams off the municipal radars.
41 | TECHNICAL REPORTS– No. 54 – OCTOBER 2020
