Building recycling rates through the informal sector

Journal Article · Sun Feb 15 04:00:00 EST 2009 · Waste Management

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wasman.2008.06.016· OSTI ID:21217133

Wilson, David C ^[1]; Araba, Adebisi O ^[2]; Chinwah, Kaine ^[1]

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1. Centre for Environmental Control and Waste Management, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Imperial College London, Skempton Building, London SW1 2BU (United Kingdom)
2. Centre for Environmental Policy, Faculty of Natural Sciences, Imperial College London, London SW7 2AZ (United Kingdom)

Many developing country cities aspire to modern waste management systems, which are associated with relatively high recycling rates of clean, source separated materials. Most already have informal sector recycling systems, which are driven solely by the revenues derived from selling recovered materials, even though they are saving the formal sector money by reducing waste quantities. There is clear potential for 'win-win' co-operation between the formal and informal sectors, as providing support to the informal sector, to build recycling rates and to address some of the social issues could reduce the overall costs of waste management for the formal sector. This paper shows that recycling rates already achieved by the informal sector can be quite high, typically in the range from 20% to 50%; often up to half of this is in the form of clean, source separated materials collected directly from households and businesses by itinerant waste buyers. Four country case studies provide a number of lessons on how this solid foundation could be used to build high recycling rates of clean materials.

• OSTI ID: 21217133
• Journal Information: Waste Management, Journal Name: Waste Management Journal Issue: 2 Vol. 29; ISSN WAMAE2; ISSN 0956-053X
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES
DEVELOPING COUNTRIES
ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION
MATERIALS RECOVERY
RECYCLING
WASTES