Solid Waste Management and Recycling

JOHAN POST

CHAPTER 2

EVOLVING PARTNERSHIPS IN THE COLLECTION OF URBAN

SOLID WASTE IN THE DEVELOPING WORLD

2.1. INTRODUCTION

In many cities in the developing world – and Hyderabad and in Nairobi are no excep-

tion – the major change that can be observed in the collection, transportation and

disposal of solid waste is the increased involvement of the private sector either ‘spon-

taneously’ in a free market setting or encouraged through local authorities, NGOs or

CBOs. Solid waste management is no longer a (local) government monopoly but a

domain open to various modes of public-private co-operation. Most studies on the

subject start by enlarging on the failures in public servicing, including excessive

numbers of workers, low labour productivity, few incentives for better performance,

poor cost recovery, and low levels of investment and poor maintenance of vehicles and

service equipment. Furthermore, the authorities often ignore the servicing of informal

areas, either for principal or for pragmatic reasons or both. Subsequently, different

methods of privatisation are suggested for achieving greater service efficiency and

effectiveness. The major concern is to evaluate the organisational and financial

aspects of privatisation initiatives, and to assess the capacity of government depart-

ments and private contractors to perform their new roles.

Although this chapter will start from the general debate on urban (environmental)

management and urban sustainable development in the context of the developing

world, it will focus on the consequences for policies and interventions with regard to

the collection (partly including transportation and disposal) of urban solid waste,

while disregarding implications for the other domains within the solid waste manage-

ment system (see chapters 6 and 9). The analysis starts from a multi-actor perspective

and recognises the existence of a multitude of institutional arrangements in solid waste

collection. The essence of such ‘partnerships’ has already been described in chapter 1.

The discussion will largely be on privatisation in solid waste collection, notably on the

arrangements between local governments and private waste collection companies, as

these have become very prominent recently. However, critical remarks will be made

about the preoccupation, both in the literature and in policy practice, with the most

dominant arrangements, while forgetting about the existence and the potentials of

others, usually because of their informal nature. Furthermore, it needs to be said at the

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I. Baud et al. (eds.), Solid Waste Management and Recycling, 21-36.
© 2004 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.