Ways to promote waste reduction and materials/organics recovery in municipalities of developing countries






1. Promote educational campaigns for (a) environmental and societal benefits of waste reduction and recycling (especially as individual economic incentives weaken), (b) composting options c) reducing the stigma attaching to waste work;

2. Study waste streams (quantity and composition analyses, by income groups); recovery/recycling systems; markets for recyclables, and problems of existing practices to decide where there may be a facilitative/regulatory role for the municipal authority;

3. Support source separation, recovery and trading networks, Including NGO projects, with information-sharing (especially of market data) and engagement of important stakeholders;

4. Facilitate small enterprises and private-public partnerships by: new or amended regulations for co-operatives, loans to businesses, amendment of counter-productive zoning and tax regulations, enable space for sorting and trading depots, etc.;

5. Reduce harassment of itinerant buyers, pickers and waste dealers by police; assist waste pickers to move out of manual picking through retraining programs or subsidization of sorting/redemption centres;

6. After consulting the major stakeholders, advocate, if feasible, selective waste minimization legislation: pressure national levels for packaging reduction, product redesign, and coding of plastics;

7. Examine the needs of near-urban farmers for organic matter and support safe waste reuse in urban agriculture; reduce or remove high subsidies of chemical fertilizers;

8. Encourage export of recyclables if there is an economic demand in nearby countries and non-toxicity is assured; remove tax barriers to such trading;

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Source: "SUSTAINABLE CONSUMPTION AND MUNICIPAL SOLID WASTE REDUCTION IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES OF ASIA" by CHRISTINE FUREDY York University, Canada