RE-USE PRACTICES AND ISSUES IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES 211
mixed in household, institutional and shop wastes. To render these less of a burden on
solid waste management, composting with separation at source is promoted as the
ideal. Achieving this on an adequate scale in large cities seems unattainable soon since
waste generators have no strong incentives for keeping their organic wastes fit for safe
composting. Doorstep sorting, however, offers an easier approach to capturing a good
deal of residential organic waste.
Subsidising the entrance of private firms into composting by supplying free wastes
and even land meets the need for dealing with some of the un-used urban organics. The
products of profit-making firms are generally too expensive, however, for small and
basic-crop farmers Local farmers will be the losers if municipal or private undertak-
ings divert the organics that the farmers accessed previously.
Policy dilemmas are grounded in the fact that the interests of the actors or stakeholders
who wish to access or to manage urban organic solid waste differ: small and marginal
farmers seek a low-cost and easily available input for their fields; private
compost-making firms wish to capture the available, uncontaminated organics; solid
waste managers see subsidies to such firms as the easiest way to reduce some of their
responsibility for organic wastes; NGOs may see compost-making as serving social
goals, such as employment for the disadvantaged. A sound policy for urban organic
waste management will seek to accommodate all these interests. The partnership
approach may help to achieve this goal (see concluding chapter).
In the meantime, changes are taking place nationally and internationally. The effects
of the requirement in India that ‘class one’ cities undertake composting are yet to be
gauged, while the interest of the GEF in reducing green house gases through
composting is linking local practices to global concerns.