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<Municipal Solid Waste Management> Latin America and the Caribbean 2.4 Topic a: Waste reduction Materials recovery is widespread in Latin America and the Caribbean. Recycling occurs in all large cities and in most medium-sized cities. By contrast, small towns and rural areas generate highly dense wastes (containing mainly organics and soils) that are not recyclable other than via composting. In addition, there is no recycling market to speak of in these areas. Materials most often recycled are paper and cardboard, glass, metals (mostly aluminum) and plastics. All of these materials, except plastics, are recycled by large-scale industries. In the case of plastics, recycling industries are usually small. These industries shred the plastics and manufacture plastic bags and containers. Large scale recycling programs of non-hazardous industrial solid wastes have been established in Colombia, Mexico, and Venezuela. Wastes (mostly paper, cardboard, bottles, plastics and ferrous metals) are separated in the industrial premises and sold to specialized private recyclers. In Colombia this program resulted from a cooperative effort to find jobs for former landfill waste pickers. Generally, except for plastics, this type of recycling is profitable and environmentally adequate. Plastics recycling is frequently done on a small scale and is highly polluting. In the case of domestic wastes, materials recovery occurs at all phases of the management chain (at the source, during transportation, and at the disposal sites), though there is a trend toward source separation. This trend has been driven by three factors: an improvement in the management of dumps, which has forced waste pickers to find work elsewhere; factories that pay more for cleaner materials; and households in the poorer countries getting paid a small amount of money for their recyclable materials. In some large Argentine, Brazilian, Colombian, and Mexican cities, recycling bins have been set up outside supermarkets, where glass and paper products can be deposited. The most successful experience is that of glass recycling in Colombia. In this case, the recycling bins were placed by a specific glass manufacturer, which also carried out a public education program. The other experiences have not been as successful, mostly because of the lack of public education on the benefits of this practice. Collection of materials at the source is done in a variety of ways, ranging from individual itinerants to municipally managed, segregated source collection. Although the number of itinerants is decreasing, their presence is widespread and, in general, they handle the largest volume of recyclable materials. It is not known how many people are involved in informal recycling in the region, but the number of people picking wastes on the streets is quite high. Approximately 100,000 people pick wastes at dump sites. Street pickers usually own a push-cart or a front-loaded tricycle with which they roam the streets calling for recyclable materials. The itinerants deliver the wastes to intermediaries who then sell the recyclable materials in bulk to the industrial plants. The social and health conditions of the itinerants are very poor. They are exploited by the intermediaries, who receive significant amounts of money from the industrial plants. Direct skipping of the intermediaries is considered to be very dangerous due to the strong economic interest that this group has in the recycling chain. Curbside pickup is being practiced only in Brazil (four cities have such a program) and Mexico. Although waste management authorities acknowledge that additional costs are incurred in this effort, these are partially compensated for by the reduced amount of waste that has to be transported and disposed of in landfills. These efforts appear to have succeeded in these Brazilian cities in part because there was no tradition of individuals or cooperatives performing such collection of recyclables, and in part because of the local authorities' inclusion into their cost calculations all the externalities that others do not consider (e.g., landfill lifetime, lower consumption of natural resources, etc.) Curbside materials collection was also attempted in Buenos Aires, but failed due to the high costs and the decision not to subsidize such an effort. Materials recovery also occurs during transportation in the cities where there is less control on the transportation routes, particularly in the poorer Andean countries and in Mexico. Trucks deviate from their regular routes to stop and deliver the recyclable materials to the intermediaries before they go to the dumps. Recyclables, in this case, include not only the typical inorganic materials, but also food residues, which are used for feeding pigs. As discussed in the Sound Practices section, this deviation from regular transportation routes imposes significant costs on the MSWM system, although it clearly supplements the low pay of the waste collection workers. Waste pickers are not allowed in managed landfills in the region. However, since many cities have open dumps, a significant amount of materials recovery occurs at the disposal site. The quality of the product is worse, of course, but the collected items can still be sold in the market. Cooperatives and small-scale enterprises In some cases the conditions of waste pickers have been improved through their organization and training. The most notable experiences are found in Colombia, but a number of other countries (Argentina, Brazil, Panama, Peru, and Venezuela) have followed suit. Recycling organizations have led to the formation of cooperatives or small-scale enterprises. In all cases, the organizations have been promoted by outside institutions such as NGOs or the local solid waste authority (the best cases for this can be observed in Belo Horizonte and Porto Alegre, Brazil, and in Mexico City). In the Brazilian cases, the waste authority has provided a site where those in charge of recycling can carry out their work. This is also the case for Mexico City, where a recycling plant that processes more than 3,200 tons per year has been installed. In both cases, all revenues go to those who separate the material, while the municipal authority benefits by increasing the lifetime of the landfill and reducing the transportation time to the landfill. The cooperatives or small-scale enterprises provide training, financial, and health support to their members, thus improving their overall social conditions. Often, the cooperatives have grown, taking not only former landfill workers but also other unemployed community members.
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