Jacky Foo wrote:
> To me garbage removal (and processing) has become a service that is not
> sustaining itself economically because the government isnt charging enough.
> If a system of additional charge is imposed on people who dont sort their
> wastes, I believe you will see a quick change.

Chris Furedy responded:
>Additional charges may work in well managed cities that have the capacity
>to collect charges, levy fines.  But let us remember that many cities in
>some parts of the world cannot regularly collect basic fees such as rates,
>electricity charges, etc from a percentage of the population.  Most do not
>have any fees for solid waste collection, although these are developing.
>Can such cities effectively levy charges for not sorting their wastes?  I
>don't think they are near to that yet.

In addition to Jacky and Chris's message I would like to add:

Indeed, in many cities of the world it is difficult, if not impossible to
impose taxes or charges for solid waste management. But there are certains
ways to overcome large gaps in the municipality SWM budget. In many cases
municipalities are implementing a system of cross-subsidies where high
income households pay higher contributions than those that fall within low
income brackets of society - if they can pay at all. And the same instrument
is surely applied for commercial establishments and industries that are also
charged more than they ought to pay for solid waste disposal. True, even a
cross-subsidy element might not be enough for SW removal to become
sustainable financially.

In a working document published by WASTE "Marketing of Solid Waste
Management Services in Tingloy, the Philippines: a study on affordability
and willingness to pay" September 1998, see also www.waste.nl, I confirmed
the hypothesis that the affordability to pay for SW services of households
in developing countries falls between 0.7 and 2.5 percent of monthly income.
Here the willingness to pay was checked by asking the residents of Tingloy
and the affordability through generating data on household expenditures
rather than household income.

These data might give municipal solid waste managers a rough guideline on
how much to spend for collection services. In general the main budget burden
lies with the necesary large investments and maintenance costs of the
truckfleet.

Rogier