Solid Waste Management and Recycling: Actors, Partnerships and Policies in Hyderabad, India and Nairobi, Kenya (GeoJournal Library)

318 Pages·2004·1.83 MB·English

by  Isa Baud

Solid Waste Management and Recycling
The GeoJournal Library
Volume 76
Managing Editor: Max Barlow, Concordia University,
Montreal, Canada
Founding Series Editor:
Wolf Tietze, Helmstedt, Germany
Editorial Board: Paul Claval, France
Yehuda Gradus, Israel
Risto Laulajainen, Sweden
Sam Ock Park, South Korea
Herman van der Wusten, The Netherlands
The titles published in this series are listed at the end of this volume.
Solid Waste Management
and Recycling
Actors, Partnerships and Policies in
Hyderabad, India and Nairobi, Kenya
edited by
ISA BAUD
University of Amsterdam,
The Netherlands
JOHAN POST
University of Amsterdam,
The Netherlands
and
CHRISTINE FUREDY
York University,
Toronto, Canada
KLUWER ACADEMIC PUBLISHERS
NEW YORK,BOSTON, DORDRECHT, LONDON, MOSCOW
eBookISBN: 1-4020-2529-7
Print ISBN: 1-4020-1975-0
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Foreword and acknowledgements vii
Chapter 1
Markets, partnerships and sustainable development in solid waste management;
raisingthequestions 1
Isa Baud
Part I
Collection, transportation and disposal of urban solid waste
Chapter 2
Evolving partnerships in the collection ofurban solid waste in the developing
world 21
Johan Post
Chapter 3
Collection, transportation and disposal of urban solid waste in Hyderabad 37
S. Galab, S. Sudhakar Reddy and Johan Post
Chapter 4
Collection, transportation anddisposalof urban solid waste in Nairobi 61
Moses M. Ikiara, Anne M. Karanja and Theo C. Davies
Chapter 5
Trial and error in privatisation; the case of Hyderabad’s solid waste
management 93
Jaap Broekema
Part II
Reuse, recovery and recycling of urban inorganic solid waste
Chapter 6
Reuse, recovery and recycling of urban inorganic solid waste; modalities,
commodity chains and sustainable development 115
Isa Baud
vi TABLEOFCONTENTS
Chapter 7
Reuse, recovery and recycling ofurban inorganic solid waste in Hyderabad 133
S.Galab, S. Sudhakar Reddy and Isa Baud
Chapter 8
Reuse, recovery and recycling ofurbaninorganic solid waste in Nairobi 161
Anne M. Karanja, Moses M. Ikiara and Theo C. Davies
Part III: Reuse of urban organic solid waste
Chapter 9
Urban organic solid waste: reusepractices and issues for solid waste
managementindevelopingcountries 197
Christine Furedy
Chapter 10
Urban organic solid waste: practicesinHyderabad 213
S. Galab, S. Sudhakar Reddy and Isa Baud
Chapter 11
Demand for compost from urbanorganicsolid wastes in Hyderabad 229
Christine Furedy and Raakhee Kulkarni
Chapter 12
Urban organic solid waste: practices in Nairobi 241
Theo C. Davies, Moses M. Ikiara, Anne M. Karanja and Christine Furedy
Part IV: Conclusions
Chapter 13
Government, market and community in urban solid waste management;
problems and potentials in the transition to sustainable development 259
Johan Post and Isa Baud
Methodological appendix 283
Bibliography 289
FOREWORD AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The project on which this book is based, results from the interest within the group of
staff and junior researchers at the University of Amsterdam on how urban environ-
mental management could be made more sustainable. Earlier studies in India and Peru
had given us knowledge on how widespread small enterprises recycling waste mate-
rials for profit and people picking waste were in many cities in the South. It also led
to a realisation of how important the contribution of such activities was to reducing
waste flows, despite the fact that such activities occurred in semi-illegal contexts and
received no recognition from governments or middle-class residents.
The debate on how to combine ecological sustainability with socio-economic
improvements in the lives of many urban citizens, led to the formulation of the project
that lies behind this book. It aimed at improving our understanding of the factors that
underlie the dynamics of the provision of a particular urban environmental service
(solid waste management), and also at providing policymakers and city managers with
ideas about how they can tackle the problems of improving the quality of the urban
environment they are dealing with daily.
This project could not have been carried out without the help of a great many people.
Our grateful thanks goes first of all to the EU INCO-DC Programme, which provided
a generous grant for the research project on Enabling Strategies for Urban Environ-
mental Management in Mega-cities (ERBIC18CT970152). The Consortium formed
for the project consisted of researchers from the Amsterdam Global Issues and Devel-
opment Studies Institute (AGIDS), Department of Human Geography, University of
Amsterdam as coordinator under my guidance, the International Institute of Environ-
ment and Development (IIED) in London, under the guidance of Dr. D. Satterthwaite,
the Centre for Economic and Social Studies in Hyderabad, India under guidance of Dr.
S.Galab, and the School of Environmental Studies, Moi University, Eldoret, Kenya,
under guidance of Prof. Dr. Th. Davies.
The teams put together from each contributing institute consisted of dedicated
researchers, from different disciplinary backgrounds who were willing to listen to
each others’ language and start to identify a common language. Furthermore, the
project could benefit from the synergy arising from joining expertise on various
aspects of the solid waste sector. We had experts on the privatisation of solid waste
collection, on the organisation of the recycling business, on the role of local commu-
nities and their organisations in waste management, on the use of organic waste matter
in (peri-)urban agriculture, and on the environmental hazards connected to waste.
viii FOREWORDAND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
At IIED, Dr. David Satterthwaite and Dr. Cecilia Tacoli provided generous hospitality
for two workshops and incisive comments on discussions and earlier versions of the
manuscript, the latter contributing a background paper on rural-urban interactions.
They also generously provided for the time contributed by Chris Furedy to the
research project. The Centre for Economic and Social Studies, under the guidance of
Dr. Mahendra Dev, provided for the time spent by Dr.S. Galab and Dr. S. Sudahkar
Reddy on the field studies done inside and around Hyderabad with their teams, and
their reports to the project team. The team in Kenya consisted of people from the
School of Environmental Studies, Moi University and researchers already working
with staff from AGIDS at the University of Amsterdam. Despite the changing compo-
sition of the team, Prof. Theo Davies as coordinator and Anne Karanja and Dr. Moses
Ikiara completed the fieldstudies with dedication, formed an integral part of the
discussions at the workshops throughout the project, and contributed the chapters
found here.
Several contributions were also made by others to the project: Dr. M. Put contributed
an interesting commissioned paper on the use of different types of organic manure –
including urban solid waste – by farmers in areas around Hyderabad, India, broad-
ening our understanding of the ways in which urban-rural links develop and wane.
Anne Karanja wrote a working paper on the informal recycling sector in Nairobi, on
the basis of her fieldwork studies for her Ph.D., which illustrated the differences in
depth and complexity of the Kenyan and Indian situations. Erwin Koster of the
University of Amsterdam carried out a field study on urban farmers in Nairobi,
complementary to the work in India, in order to improve our understanding of the
ways in which farmers use organic manure and waste materials in their farming strat-
egies. Finally, Dr. Johan Berkhout carried out a transect study in Nairobi, pinpointing
geographically areas of activities in SWM within the urban system, laid down in a
CD-Rom. R. Dhanalakshmi checked recent elements concerning community-based
initiatives in Hyderabad for finalization of the manuscript.
Editing the final manuscript is a process in itself, and I would like to thank my
co-editors for the generous amounts of time they made available to bring the manu-
script to completion. Particularly, I would like to thank Dr. Johan Post, who provided
the main liaison with the publisher and the layout-editor Anne van der Zwalmen
during this process. Finally, the assistance of the University of Amsterdam project
bureau was invaluable in guiding me through the maze of administrative and financial
reporting throughout the project period. Particular thanks goes to Harry van Kesteren,
who remained unruffled throughout and coordinated with his financial counterparts
from the other contributing institutions, and the desk officers from the European
Union, who provided backstopping for this project.
Isa Baud
Project Coordinator
July 2003
ISA BAUD
CHAPTER 1
MARKETS, PARTNERSHIPS AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
IN SOLID WASTE MANAGEMENT; RAISING THE QUESTIONS
1.1. INTRODUCTION
The global economic crisis in the 1970s led to significant transformations in interna-
tional and national institutional arrangements. Major actors on the international stage
– countries such as the US and the UK, transnational corporations and the Bretton
Woods institutions – strongly advocated the primacy of the market and the retreat of
the state. Such neo-liberal ideas on market liberalisation and deregulation were
imposed on many countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America under the aegis of struc-
tural adjustment programmes. One area governments in the South were strongly
advised to withdraw from was that of direct provision of basic services.
However, the results of these reform programmes were less successful than expected.
Although state governments reduced spending and economic growth occurred after an
initial period in some countries, the late 1980s were characterised by increasing
disparities between rich and poor. Within many southern states, urban poverty and
informalisation of employment and economic activities grew rapidly, presenting huge
problems for local authorities to deal with. In many cities, new forms of collective
organisation started to emerge among poor households together with a variety of
non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in order to counter poverty and promote
community and neighbourhood development.
In the 1990s, the limits of the free market approach were increasingly recognized by
even its most fervent advocates. Furthermore, the collapse of state communism and
the fall of the Berlin Wall had created an entirely new political climate, one favourable
to the democratic reform of state bureaucracies. The difficulties that many countries
in the south, but also in the former communist world, experienced in their transition
to a market economy also fuelled an interest in the (democratic) institutions that
underpin processes of development. Economists have expressed this interest by
looking at the role of meso-level institutions and how they influence economic
growth1.
1
I. Baud et al. (eds.), Solid Waste Management and Recycling, 1-18.
© 2004 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.