Jacky Foo, USP-Samoa wrote:
>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.

This 40% estimate refers to the the MWPF existing in this city. There are
only a handful of cities in Brazil that operate such a facility. All the
others landfill their trash as it is collected.

So this 40% does not represent any average, it is an exception. The
activities of scavengers are a different topic. These people roam the streets
to gather what they can sell to some trash wholesalers. They are not linked
to any MWPF and thus operate anywhere. Some of them have formed cooperatives.
The point of our research is that our model could integrate the scavengers
into the routine collection and processing procedures, something that to our
knowledge has not been attempted before.

>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 .

Thank you for this information. I do not know whether the U.N. Center reads
our publications on this topic, but I have not had the honor of being
contacted. Maybe you could mention our existence to them.

>>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 ?

Yes we can. Obviously, not in a few words. We developed a philosophy to cope
with the problem. And we know it works, because we have tried it out. It
would take several papers worth of reading to reach the broad scope implied
in your question. The best I can do from here is to invite responsible
administrators in developing countries to study our model or contact me.

Our model has been published, apart from this internet conference, in various
journals. Some of them are Brazilian journals, of course, and are in
Portuguese. In case this means something to you, I can give you the
references. Some of them are international journals written in English.

One paper will appear in the next issue of the Journal of Solid Waste
Technology and Management. Another paper will appear in the next issue of
Resources Conservation and Recycling. I will give you the internet pages
where you can find these papers, as soon as they get published. The Journal
of Environmental Systems, vol 27 no. 1 pp. 1-13 published an article of mine
in 1999. You can check it out at www.baywood.com. The Elsevier journal
Resources Conservation and Recycling vol 22 pp 193-202 published an article
of mine in 1998. You can check it out at www.elsevier.nl. In the proceedings
of this year's ACHEMA conference, there is a paper of mine on landfill
diversion in different scenarios. You can check it out at www.achema.de.

I am preparing some more papers on the subject right now. As they get
published, I will let you know.

You bet, and thanks for the contribution.
Manfred