Fehr et al wrote in their paper:
>For a city of 440000 people like the one studied here,
>in the era of unrestricted landfill, the transfer of matter
>from planet Earth to planet Trash is 276+84=360 t/d for
>MSW excluding construction and hospital trash.
>.........(cut).........
>The city under study operates a mixed waste processing
>facility (MWPF) which, according to information obtained
>from management, diverts an estimated 40% of collected
>waste from landfill.

it is interesting to know of this potential to divert 40 % of collected
wastes. Brazil is known for its fairly large sector of scavengers who collect
and sell a good part of inert materials from MSW. In the Philippines, there
are case studies of successful businesses on scavenging materials from MSW.

I am pleased to inform you that in Porto Alegre, Brazil, a Working Group on
Waste Management was created this June by the U N Center for Human
Settlements. Various academic institutions, NGOs and municipal governments
are founding members of this
working group, including a friend of mine - Dr. Martin Medina .

>With the diversion target known, it remained to find
>answers to question 3: What has been achieved,
>what needs to be done and how should it be done ?

A number of developed countries have targeted on biodegradable waste
diversion from the landfills. Often a technological solution is provided with
high investments in mechanical separation and large scale composting.

Can you elaborate some recommendations for developing countries (with less
capacity for high investments) on how they can cope with a similar target in
organic waste diversion ?

regards
jacky