Empirical Investigation of Formal and Informal Sectors in Waste Recycling of the Municipal Waste Management System of Developing Countries: The Case Study of Lagos State

2016 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 21 ◽  
Author(s):  
Oladipupo Salau ◽  
Lalita Sen ◽  
Samuel Osho ◽  
Oluwatoyin Adejonwo-Osho
Keyword(s):  
Developing Countries ◽  
Waste Management ◽  
Informal Sector ◽  
Waste Recycling ◽  
Recycling Rate ◽  
Waste Collection ◽  
Formal Sector ◽  
Municipal Waste Management ◽  
Lagos State ◽  
Formal And Informal Sectors

Municipalities in metropolitan cities of developing countries often find it difficult to cope with the onerous task of providing waste services to their citizens due to financial constraints and poor infrastructure.  In most of these cities, waste collection services are grossly inadequate as less than half the population is served with regular and efficient waste services.  However, the shortcomings of the formal waste management system are compensated by the activities of the informal sector engaged in waste collection and make significant contributions to the MWMS through material recovery and waste recycling. In view of this, the study focuses on the roles of the formal and informal sector in municipal waste management with regards to their impacts on the recycling rate of Lagos State. In this study, we measured and compared the recycling rates between the formal and informal sectors to determine their impacts on the recycling rates of Lagos State. The study relies on primary field data, site visits and observations backed by secondary sources to investigate the range of informal sector activities in comparison to the formal sector. The findings indicate that, while both sub-sectors play significant roles in the MWMS, the informal recycling activities contribute more to the recycling rate of Lagos state than the formal sector.

scholarly journals Municipal Waste Management in Towns of Switzerland: a Foreign Ecologist’s View

2020 ◽  
Vol 169 ◽  
pp. 02010
Author(s):  
Roman Mamadzhanov ◽  
Yulia Zakirova ◽  
Mykhadi Umarov
Keyword(s):  
Waste Management ◽  
Environmental Assessment ◽  
Waste Recycling ◽  
Municipal Waste ◽  
Waste Collection ◽  
Recycling System ◽  
Municipal Waste Management ◽  
The Impact

The article presents the results of the research carried out by the foreign ecologists, particularly the study of the system of municipal waste management in the municipality of Maienfeld, Switzerland. The total amount of municipal waste has been calculated. The systems of municipal waste collection, sorting, transportation and recycling have been studied. Besides, four possible scenarios of waste recycling in Maienfeld have been developed. Moreover, the environmental assessment of the waste recycling system by GHG/SLCP emissions has been conducted, and the impact of recycling on the climate has been determined. Finally, taking into account the results of the research, the best scenario of recycling has been proposed.

scholarly journals The objectives and legal instruments of Municipal Waste Management in the Slovak Republic

2020 ◽  
pp. 29-40
Author(s):  
Martin Dufala
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Waste Management ◽  
Slovak Republic ◽  
Waste Recycling ◽  
Municipal Waste ◽  
High Rate ◽  
Recycling Rate ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Municipal Waste Management ◽  
Per Capita

In particular, two types of data are important for assessing the state of waste management in each Member State of the European Union — first, the amount of the waste generated per capita annually and waste recovery rate, second, the rate of waste disposal in accordance with the waste hierarchy. The latest available statistics on the amount of waste generated per capita are for 2018. While the European Union average is 492 kg of municipal waste produced per capita for 2018, the Slovak Republic’s waste production is slightly less than that, with an average of 414 kg of municipal waste produced per capita for 2018. On the other hand, Denmark with 766 kg of municipal waste produced per capita annually is at the bottom of the European Union ranking. The Czech Republic with 351 kg and Poland with 329 kg of municipal waste produced per capita on the average annually for the same period are in better position than Slovak Republic. Another important data for the evaluation of the state of municipal waste management is the rate of recovery of municipal waste, alternatively — the municipal waste recycling rate. Within this scope, the Slovak Republic performs considerably worse, both regarding the waste management objectives and in comparison with the European Union average, or in comparison with remaining Member States. While the average recycling rate of municipal waste in the European Union was 47.0% in 2018, the Slovak Republic recycled only 36.3% of municipal waste in 2018. The situation within this scope in the Czech Republic/Czechia (34.5%) and Poland (34.3%) were similar. Germany achieved the highest municipal waste recycling rate in 2018, up to 67.3%. Directly related to the rate of the municipal waste recovery is the high rate of waste disposal, especially in the form of landfill, which was in the Slovak Republic in 2018 amounted to 55.0%. Despite the high rate of landfill, we can speak of a reduction in the landfill rate of municipal waste compared to previous years. From the foregoing data of selected indicators of the average recycling rate of municipal waste, it can be deduced that the system of municipal waste management in the Slovak Republic is obviously flawed, in as much as municipal waste management lacks long-term management in accordance with the waste hierarchy. The said deficiency may result either from insufficient legislation pertaining to this area or failure in terms of its enforcement. 

A model to rapidly assess informal electronic waste systems

2020 ◽  
pp. 0734242X2093222
Author(s):  
John-Michael Davis
Keyword(s):  
Waste Management ◽  
Informal Sector ◽  
Electronic Waste ◽  
Waste Recycling ◽  
Environmental Harm ◽  
Waste Collection ◽  
The Core ◽  
Formal Systems ◽  
Management Policies ◽  
Study Offer

Electronic waste (e-waste) policies have traditionally been based on extended producer responsibility (EPR) principles. In practice, EPR-based e-waste policies primarily involve the creation of regulated collection and recycling channels, with success tied to achieving high collection quotas. However, the majority of EPR programs, particularly those in the Global South, have achieved little success due to competition with the informal sector. Despite this, strikingly little is known of the scope and dynamics of informal e-waste flows and actors during the formulation of e-waste management policies. This study develops and pilots a replicable three-stage model for solid waste researchers, practitioners and policymakers to rapidly assess these informal e-waste systems. This model is demonstrated in Cuenca, Ecuador, and determined the destination of 50–80% of Cuenca’s e-waste over a period of three days. The methods used and findings that emerge from this study offer a strategy to rapidly quantify and understand the dynamics of informal e-waste systems to inform EPR-based policies in ways that place informal recyclers at the core of e-waste management. This not only provides creative opportunities for formal systems to achieve e-waste collection quotas through partnerships with the informal sector, but offers a pathway to preserve the livelihoods of marginalized populations reliant on e-waste recycling and decrease environmental harm.

scholarly journals Assessing the Formal and Informal Waste Recycling Business Processes through a Stakeholders Lens in Pakistan

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (21) ◽  
pp. 11717
Author(s):  
Muhammad Nawaz ◽  
Muhammad Tariq Yousafzai ◽  
Salim Khan ◽  
Wisal Ahmad ◽  
Muhammad Salman ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Municipal Solid Waste ◽  
Solid Waste ◽  
Informal Sector ◽  
Business Processes ◽  
Waste Recycling ◽  
Spare Parts ◽  
Value Chains ◽  
Target Area ◽  
Waste Collection ◽  
Formal Sector

With this study, we aim to assess integration possibilities of formal and informal waste management approaches in a low-income country context by using recycling as a tool towards sustainability. Using a holistic approach, this study examines both formal and informal aspects of recycling value chains through a stakeholder lens. Pakistan is far from being a circular economy, as evident from the dismal levels of municipal solid waste collection and recycling. This problem calls for the effective integration of formal and informal recycling business processes to fill the void. With this study, we seek to assess various aspects of formal and informal waste recycling in Pakistan through an inductive qualitative research design by examining the case of one of the most populous cities, Lahore, in the Punjab province of Pakistan. Equal representation to various stakeholders is accorded, with 25 interviews each with managers of private companies, public companies, waste pickers and scrap dealers in the target area. The study highlights that recycling sector in Pakistan is completely informal and unregulated with no or little support available due to a lack of funds and systematic planning. The empirical evidence suggests that the formal sector lacks the capacity for proper waste disposal of total waste generated. The recycling aspects are left to informal sector stakeholders who improvise to extract value from MSW in an entrepreneurial manner. The formal sector holds a bias towards informal stakeholders due to the fact that their work also serves as a theft bargain and resale platform under the guise of waste collection and recycling. The study highlights the most and least sought after recyclables, identifies gray channel markets of spare parts, metal recycling and counterfeit products, and practices of adulteration in the target area. This study recommends as a policy input, to overcome bias towards the informal sector, the creation of a central recycling commission to overlook and regulate the affairs of hitherto unregulated and informal municipal solid waste and recycling value chains.

Challenges confronting waste pickers in Indonesia: An on-field analysis

2021 ◽  
pp. 0734242X2110291
Author(s):  
Gabriel Andari Kristanto ◽  
Dini Kemala ◽  
Paras AC Nandhita
Keyword(s):  
Waste Management ◽  
Waste Recycling ◽  
Driving Factors ◽  
Field Analysis ◽  
Substantial Contribution ◽  
Recycling Rate ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Large Cities ◽  
Solid Waste Recycling ◽  
Waste Pickers

This article presents the informal recycling sector’s (IRS) social, economic driving factors in five cities in Indonesia and their contribution to waste management in the cities. An on-field analysis was conducted by random and incidental sampling method of questionnaire administration followed by observation. Among the respondents ( n = 178), 79% of individuals were waste pickers, 15% were small-scale waste collectors, and 6% were medium-scale waste collectors. The majority of the waste pickers sampled are male (79%). The amount of waste collected by individual waste pickers is 43.87 kg person−1 day−1, a corresponding recycling rate of approximately 12%, and an average monthly income of US$91.7. Gender differences are apparent as the male waste pickers generated higher incomes than those earned by their female counterparts (US$128.3 for men and US$69.7 for women) even as their average work hours are similar to that of the men (7.8 and 7.6 hours day−1, respectively). Economic motives are the respondents’ primary driving factors as moving to large cities accompanied by their family members. The study concluded that the IRS plays substantial contribution to waste management; further integrating them into the waste management system via IRS association, additional investment, formulation of law and policies and efforts by municipalities can give various benefits for involved stakeholders, the community and the environment. The results can serve as a significant reference for improving the solid waste recycling system and informal sector management in Indonesian cities and other developing countries.

scholarly journals Waste collection in rural communities: challenges under EU regulations. A Case study of Neamt County, Romania

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Florin Constantin MIHAI
Keyword(s):  
Rural Communities ◽  
Waste Management ◽  
Rural Areas ◽  
Regional Scale ◽  
Municipal Waste ◽  
Waste Collection ◽  
Management Options ◽  
Municipal Waste Management ◽  
Administrative Unit ◽  
Open Dumping

The paper aims to examine the changes in the rural waste management sector at regional scale since the Romania adhesion to the EU in 2007. Traditional waste management based on the mixed waste collection and waste disposal often on improper sites prevailed in municipal waste management options of transitional economies across the globe. The lack of formal waste collection services in rural areas has encouraged the open dumping or backyard burning. The paper analyses the improvements and challenges of local authorities in order to fulfill the new EU requirements in this sector supported by data analysis at local administrative unit levels and field observations. Geographical analysis is compulsory in order to reveal the local disparities. The paper performs an assessment of waste collection issues across 78 rural municipalities within Neamt County. This sector is emerging in rural areas of Eastern Europe, but is far from an efficient municipal waste management system based on the waste hierarchy concept.

Surviving from garbage: the role of informal waste-pickers in a dynamic model of solid-waste management in developing countries

2006 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 371-391 ◽  
Author(s):  
ROCÍO DEL PILAR MORENO-SÁNCHEZ ◽  
JORGE HIGINIO MALDONADO
Keyword(s):  
Developing Countries ◽  
Waste Management ◽  
Solid Waste ◽  
Dynamic Model ◽  
Solid Waste Management ◽  
Waste Collection ◽  
Management Policies ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Waste Pickers

In developing countries, informal waste-pickers (known as scavengers) play an important role in solid waste management systems, acting in a parallel way to formal waste collection and disposal agents. Scavengers collect, from the streets, dumpsites, or landfills, re-usable and recyclable material that can be reincorporated into the economy's production process. Despite the benefits that they generate to society, waste-pickers are ignored when waste management policies are formulated. The purpose of this paper is to integrate the role of scavengers in a dynamic model of production, consumption, and recovery, and to show that, in an economy producing solid waste, efficiency can be reached using a set of specific and complementary policies: a tax on virgin materials use, a tax on consumption and disposal, and a subsidy to the recovery of material. A numerical simulation is performed to evaluate the impact of these policies on landfill lifetime and natural resource stocks. A discussion on the implementation of these instruments is also included.

scholarly journals Informality and Development

2014 ◽  
Vol 28 (3) ◽  
pp. 109-126 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rafael La Porta ◽  
Andrei Shleifer
Keyword(s):  
Economic Growth ◽  
Developing Countries ◽  
Economic Development ◽  
Informal Sector ◽  
Economic Activity ◽  
Organizational Form ◽  
Formal Sector ◽  
Dual Models

In developing countries, informal firms account for up to half of economic activity. They provide livelihood for billions of people. Yet their role in economic development remains controversial with some viewing informality as pent-up potential and others viewing informality as a parasitic organizational form that hinders economic growth. In this paper, we assess these perspectives. We argue that the evidence is most consistent with dual models, in which informality arises out of poverty and the informal and formal sectors are very different. It seems that informal firms have low productivity and produce low-quality products; and, consequently, they do not pose a threat to the formal firms. Economic growth comes from the formal sector, that is, from firms run by educated entrepreneurs and exhibiting much higher levels of productivity. The expansion of the formal sector leads to the decline of the informal sector in relative and eventually absolute terms. A few informal firms convert to formality, but more generally they disappear because they cannot compete with the much more-productive formal firms.

Class Differentiation and the Informal Sector in Amman, Jordan

1992 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 27-38 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rebecca Miles Doan
Keyword(s):  
Informal Sector ◽  
Urban Poor ◽  
Formal Sector ◽  
Economic Activities ◽  
Single Class ◽  
The World ◽  
Formal And Informal Sectors

Studies of economic activities among the urban poor in various parts of the world have found more variation in the so-called informal sector than they had expected. The urban poor had typically been thought of as a kind of “reserve army” for the formal sector, an underclass at the margins of survival. Even early work that recognized the links between the formal and informal sectors lumped them together as a single class that ranked below all the others. The tendency to regard workers in the informal sector as members of an underclass masked the tremendous variations among them and between informal sectors in different places.

scholarly journals Problems of Working Women in the Rural Informal Sector of Punjab (Pakistan)

1999 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 89-99
Author(s):  
Karamat Ali ◽  
Abdul Hamid Abdul Hamid
Keyword(s):  
Developing Countries ◽  
Informal Sector ◽  
Working Women ◽  
Variable Structure ◽  
Policy Instrument ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Formal Sector ◽  
Economic Activities ◽  
The One

The informal sector plays a significant role in Pakistan’s economy as well as in other developing countries. The role of the informal sector in solving the unemployment problem of Third World countries has become the focus of a conceptual and empirical debate in recent years. Most of the research takes a favourable view of this sector and suggests that it should be used as a policy instrument for the solution of the most pressing problems of developing countries, such as unemployment, poverty, income inequalities, etc. Before proceeding further, we will define the informal sector and differentiate it from the formal sector. There are various definitions, but the one given in an ILO report (1972) is generally considered the best. According to this report, informal sector activities are ways of doing things characterised by a heterogeneous array of economic activities with relative ease of entry, reliance on indigenous resources; temporary or variable structure and family ownership of enterprises, small scale of operation, labour intensive and adapted technology, skills acquired outside the formal school system, not depending on formal financial institutions for its credit needs; unregulated and unregistered units, and not observing fixed hours/days of operation.

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