Innovative methods for environmental management of solid waste in informal urban settlements of Lima, Peru : summary and lessons learned from the Alternativa demonstration project

Key project elements included: increasing the participation of all stakeholders, including community members, grass-roots community groups, the informal sector business community, the private sector, and the municipality; introducing a private sector approach to providing basic urban services that is responsive to consumers" demand and willingness to pay; reducing the total solid waste stream by creating ways to reuse, sell, and recycle various materials; strengthening the public sector"s capacity to take on new roles in SWM that are appropriate and effective for peri-urban areas; introducing innovative technologies that are appropriate and environmentally sustainable; and launching a comprehensive health education and social marketing campaign to change community- and household-level environmental sanitation behaviors. Specific activities are detailed in the report. The principal lesson learned was that success by private sector microenterprises is closely tied to the ability and willingness of the local authorities to support their efforts. The support required included developing formal contracts giving the microenterprises concessions to work in certain areas, providing payments for managing the landfill, and coordinating efforts with municipally collected waste. Future efforts may want to insist that the local authority participate in the project design (and perhaps funding). Other lessons were as follows: (1) The microenterprises were successfully trained by Alternativa in the technical aspects of SWM, but had great difficulty in becoming financially self-sufficient and so continued their dependency on Alternativa. Key concerns were entrepreneurs" lack of entrepreneurial skills and their tendency to view Alternativa, which had created them as part of a community effort, as their boss rather than to view themselves as independent entrepreneurs. In future efforts, it may be beneficial to explore the use of existing informal private sector entrepreneurs (e.g., scavengers) since they already have a good business sense. (2) The second major reason that the businesses were not financially viable is that, in general, Alternativa"s advice that they collect waste from houses three rather than just two times a week resulted in higher operational costs than consumers were willing to pay. Future efforts should determine level of service according to household willingness to pay. (Author abstract, modified)