MODES OF URBAN INORGANIC SOLID WASTE 129
chain (waste pickers) having the least legitimacy usually, and the firms using
secondary materials being part of formal sector production (Baud et al., 2001; Arroyo
Moreno et al., 1997/99).
The second major type of partnership found is the triad between local government,
NGOs, and waste pickers (women and youth mainly). This triad is usually based on a
combination of social justice and economic considerations, with the NGO as nodal
point between local authorities and waste pickers and dealers This type of partnership
contributes to environmental aspects of sustainable development, by supporting
existing patterns of collection and sale of recovered materials, by the creation of
co-operatives and/or contracting with local authorities for neighbourhood collection
schemes. It also contributes by the improvement of waste collection and separation at
neighbourhood level and thus to cleaner neighbourhoods. Because of their
small-scale, it is not yet clear whether these initiatives actually contribute to larger and
more varied flows of recovered materials at city levels (see also chapters on organic
waste diversion) (Furedy, 1997b).
In the area of socio-economic issues, partnerships between local government, NGOs
and waste pickers contribute highly to better co-ordination between the informal and
formal sectors of the urban SWM systems (cf. Dhanalakshmi and Iyer, 1999; Lapid,
1996). Studies in Chennai, Manila and Lima indicate that the recognition of their
activities makes waste pickers much less vulnerable to harassment by police and resi-
dents, and improves their working conditions because more energy is spent on safety
and health aspects (Baud et al., 2001; Lapid, 1996; Furedy, 1997a). Such partnerships
also contribute to the financial viability of the SWM system as a whole, because more
materials can be recovered in a cleaner state (increasing their economic value), as well
as increasing the returns for the waste pickers themselves. Finally, such partnerships
contribute to the reduction of flows for final disposal (Baud et al., 2001).
The assessment of partnerships according to specific aspects of sustainable develop-
ment is still a new area in studies on the situation in developing countries. The Urban
Waste Expertise Programme (UWEP) is the only other programme, to our knowledge,
that also uses the integrated sustainable approach to solid waste management for
studies in developing countries. The paper by van der Klundert and Lardinois (1995)
was an early effort at developing the concept of integrated sustainable solid waste
management. They define sustainable development in waste management as incorpo-
rating social/cultural criteria, environmental criteria, institutional/political criteria,
financial criteria, economic criteria and technical criteria. ‘Integrated’ waste manage-
ment includes the use of ‘a range of different collection and treatment options’, based
on the use of the ‘waste hierarchy’ described at the beginning of this chapter. There-
fore, in the UWEP studies, sufficient information is provided on both collection and
disposal, as well as on recycling and recovery issues.