Dealing with waste and well-being, this thesis aims at contributing to ideas of sustainability and their application in practice. Since the concept of sustainable development has been discussed in various settings and remains a topic of discussion in the scientific as well as in the political and economic sphere up until the current day, the authors conception of sustainability1 shall be explained as follows. After clarifying the definition of SD, waste management shall be presented as a topic which can be related to the concept and how this connection may provide an improved approach to solid waste management (SWM).
After being elaborated on by thinkers from different areas, the World Commission on Environment and Development (1987) established a definition of SD that is still used as a basis for scientific and practical work today. The so-called Brundtland Commission defined SD as “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” (World Commission on Environment and Development, 1987, p. 41). The definition furthermore included a twofold demand for justice, concerning intergenerational justice on the one
1 “Sustainable development” and “sustainability” will be used interchangeably in this work.
hand and intragenerational justice on the other (Zimmermann, 2016). Thus, SD strives towards justice between current generations living on the planet, ergo between individuals living in a national society as well as between the global North and South, targeting pressing issues like poverty alleviation and social equity between Northern and Southern actors. SD also promotes justice between current and future generations, meaning that current generations should not jeopardize the survival of their descendants. Also, the Brundtland Commission accentuates poverty as the main reason of environmental degradation and present alleviation of poverty as an essential step on the way towards SD. Lastly, the report addresses the limited ability of ecosystems to provide for the needs of current and future generations and with that shifts the focus of SD from lasting revenue of ecological resources to a focus on human needs and ecological boundaries.
The specifications of Zimmermann (2016) help to further concretize the Brundtland definition. In his work, he describes four dimensions of the notion: (1) ecological, (2) economic, (3) social and (4) institutional sustainability.
(1) Ecological sustainability refers to a state in which degradation of natural resources takes place more slowly than the time needed for their recovery. Moreover, this sustainability dimension includes the demand to circumvent the depletion of non-renewable resources, as well as the demand for a balanced relation between human input and temporal natural restrictions that define nature’s reaction capacity (Zimmermann, 2016). Hence, ecological sustainability refers to the different aspects of human-nature interaction and to the ways in which this interaction may contribute to the aim of SD in general. (2) Economic sustainability on the other hand is concerned with satisfying the needs of today’s generations, in addition to securing future generations’ ability to meet their own needs. Several alternative approaches to mainstream economics focus on this goal. While some provide ideas to reform established economic concepts to include the interdisciplinary concepts of SD, others refer to alternatives to growth as an economic paradigm by using strategies concerned with efficiency, consistency and sufficiency (Zimmermann, 2016).
Economic sustainability includes several more approaches2 while all of them share the common goal of satisfying current and future needs, contrary to prevailing economic systems. (3) The social dimension of sustainability is crucial to the topic, this thesis deals with, since it provides the aim to the theoretical framework, it was based upon3. According to Zimmermann (2016), social sustainability is concerned with four different challenges. First, there is integration, meaning
2 See Zimmermann, 2016, pp. 9-13 for a thorough presentation of the economic dimension of SD.
3 Chapter 3.4.1 grants an overview of the framework and its connection with SD.
Figure 1: Position of Solid Waste
Management Within the Four Dimensions of Sustainability.
Source: Own Illustration, adapted from Zimmermann (2016).
connecting and acknowledging cultural differences, instead of discriminating certain people or groups. Second, persistence is part of social sustainability because the notion is in need of stability concerning a peaceful society, the right to education, security and avoiding risks. Third, the social dimension includes justice with regard to contribution of resources on a national, international, inter- and intragenerational level and finally fourth, participation, meaning the inclusion of all stakeholders in decision-making processes. Last but not least, Zimmermann (2016) adds (4) institutional sustainability to the dimensions of SD. This dimension addresses ways to include civil society in the discourse around solving social issues. Concepts that enable institutional sustainability, like governance and participation, render greater decision-making power to civil society. When a state of institutional sustainability would be reached, social injustice may be fought through cooperation of decision-makers from the political, the administrative and the civil sphere.
All four dimensions, which were discussed above, are connected, so that every dimension has a point of contact with all remaining dimensions. As a result, different areas of action come into being, out of which the well-known tripartite perspective of economic, ecological and social dimension is only one area of action out of four. Figure 1 illustrates the integrative perspective of the connected four dimensions of sustainability. SWM is concerned with all four sustainability dimensions and put at the center of the tetrahedron. Yet, a lot of SWM approaches fail to take all relevant dimensions into account, which is why several scholars (Coffey & Coad, 2010; MacDougall, 2001; Topić, 2014; Troschinetz & Mihelcic, 2009; van de Klundert, Anschutz, & Scheinberg, 2001;
Wilson, Rodic, Scheinberg, Velis, & Alabaster, 2012) call for an integrated solid waste management (ISWM) that pays attention to all relevant aspects on every stage of the waste management process.
Since recyclers are integral actors of SWM in Peru and their livelihoods are thus located in the same area as the topic of SWM in the described sustainability framework, recyclers’ individual well-being may be considered an area of potential when trying to reach the goal of SD. Before elaborating in more detail about ISWM and how it is connected to the livelihoods of recyclers in Peru, a working definition of solid waste shall be determined. Since the case study was carried out in the Peruvian capital Lima, Peruvian legislation will be definitive in the context of this thesis. It defines solid waste as follows:
Solid waste is any object, material, substance or element resulting from consuming a good or a service, which is discarded by its owner or which its owner aims or is forced to discard, in order to have it processed, prioritizing valorization of waste and lastly final disposition. (Decreto Legislativo Que Aprueba La Ley De Gestión Integral De Resiudos Sólidos, 2016)
Intriguingly, the ordinance from which this definition was taken translates to “Ordinance passing the Law of Integrated Solid Waste Management” and shows that Peruvian law-makers are taking up the approach, the aforementioned scholars speak out in favor for. This definition includes processing, valorization and final disposition of waste which indicates that not only service users of SWM matter in this context, but providers like recyclers, too.
As the name implies, ISWM is concerned with integrating several components of the SWM system.
This integration may finally result in a sustainable form of SWM that is economically affordable, socially acceptable as well as environmentally effective (Topić, 2014). While the topic of this thesis demands a stronger focus on social sustainability, ISWM holds the potential to bring forward environmental advantages as well as economic benefits in addition to positive effects in the societal sphere. Several techniques are necessary to turn a divided SWM system into an integrated one. Like that, all SWM components, namely waste streams, waste collection, waste treatment and disposal methods should be calibrated according to sustainability criteria (MacDougall, 2001). By applying this approach, three dimensions of SWM come into being (Wilson et al., 2012): stakeholders, waste system elements and sustainability aspects. While sustainability aspects serve as measurement tools for existing SWM systems, helping to assess them regarding their technical, environmental, economic, socio-cultural, institutional and legal facets, examining the specific waste system elements, meaning the actual process of how waste is handled, is an indispensable step when trying to integrate a SWM system. The stakeholder dimension poses the main challenge to waste management professionals aiming for ISWM though: identifying and connecting all relevant actors in order to facilitate cooperation between them, working for a common purpose (Topić, 2014).
Stakeholders in the SWM context can be categorized in four groups: service providers, service users, intermediaries and regulatory bodies (ibid.). If a coordinated state of cooperation between actors from all four groups, for instance a municipal government, a NGO, households of the municipality and formal as well as informal service providers, is reached, the whole SWM system will perform better in terms of sustainability, provoke changes in behavior and enable stakeholders to share financial responsibility (van de Klundert et al., 2001).
Intending to integrate the different components of a SWM system moreover facilitates planners to take a closer look at the needs of communities in the global South, instead of imposing existing Northern SWM models and the respective systems and technologies on them (ibid.). Northern approaches to SWM are often based on frame conditions that draw a completely different picture than is given by Southern circumstances, which makes it necessary to be clear about the specific needs of the respective stakeholders. Like that, collection and treatment may be adapted to the relevant conditions, in addition to bringing relevant actors together and evaluating decisions according to sustainability criteria. Also, Troschinetz and Mihelcic (2009) concluded from their case studies of municipal SWM in countries of the South that certain SWM activities, seemingly belonging to only one sustainability dimension, are actually multidimensional and that this multidimensionality correlates with stakeholder involvement. Hence, paying attention to stakeholders’ needs should render additional information on the sustainability dimensions that are of importance for reaching an ISWM. Wilson et al. (2012) suggest that formal occupational recognition of the informal sector working in SWM practices or recycling as well as evidence of protected informal sector rights to take part in the SWM system should be drawn upon as measurement indices for inclusivity of SWM. This is to say that acknowledging the role of informal recyclers for waste management should be considered a necessary precondition, enabling integration of a SWM system and learning about their individual well-being, forming part of a formal waste management system holds exciting potential for promoting sustainability.
In the context of this work, ISWM is considered as the unifying goal of stakeholders that are relevant to the case study, carried out in a district of Lima, Peru. Aiming at examining social sustainability of individual recyclers’ livelihoods, the theoretical approach of this thesis is based on a framework that focuses on human well-being. To provide for a thorough understanding of the MCLAA, the theoretical concepts contributing to the merged framework, namely they CA and the SLA, will be presented in the following chapters, arming a basis upon which the MCLAA’s components as well as its relation to SD will be discussed.