RE-USE PRACTICES AND ISSUES IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES 207
‘Compost credits’: International agency support for composting
The Global Environmental Facility (GEF) has become a source of international funds
to subsidise compost making from urban organic wastes. The GEF offers funds for
processes that reduce greenhouse gases (GHGs). While research has not established
the extent to which anaerobic composting reduces GHGs, GEF has accepted the
assumption that composting is preferable to sanitary landfilling or open dumping.
Regions and cities have begun applying for funds under the rubric of ‘compost
credits’. The West Java and Jakarta Environmental Management Program has secured
a large GEF grant to support a community-based organic waste compost scheme
(Hoornweg, 2000) and India is preparing an application to GEF.
Persisting issues
It should not be assumed that composting is the best way to reuse all urban organic
wastes. As Harriss and his colleagues point out, the ‘purer’ wastes (i.e. not mixed with
other garbage) will have a higher value as animal feed (Harriss et al., 2001). However,
with respect to the organic wastes generated in urban residences and institutions (the
wastes that comprise the bulk of the responsibility of solid waste managers),
composting remains the process by which a large quantity could be processed and
diverted from disposal. But composting of urban organic solid waste is not financially
sustainable under the current methods of cost accounting by solid waste management
departments in developing countries. As long as most wastes are disposed of by
low-cost open dumping, composting is an expensive option for cities and towns in
these areas.
The composting units in Asia that are the most successful and that manage to recover
their costs from their sales are private firms with a wide range of products, sold to a
variety of customers (nationally and even abroad). Their compost, however, is out of the
reach of small peri-urban farmers who greatly need compost and who would be willing
to buy a low-priced waste-derived but pure product (see chapter 10; Nunan, 2000).
Neighbourhood-level composting projects can play a role, however, in public educa-
tion about solid waste management. Good compliance with source separation or
doorstep sorting is essential to these projects. The most progress in source separation
has been in cities where the municipal government has strongly endorsed separation,
and community groups and NGOs implement this or doorstep sorting. Support of
regional and national governments for separation further strengthens waste generator
co-operation (Lardinois and Furedy, 1999: 192).
Apart from the debates over what sort of composting is viable, there remains a broader
question of understanding the current uses of urban organic wastes, who ‘owns’ the
wastes, and how the competing claims to these resources should be articulated and
resolved (Harriss et al., 2001).