Urban solid waste and circular economy in Latin America
As cities continue to grow and expand across LatAm, it is evident that urban solid waste management efforts fall short. How can Latin American cities decouple their economic growth from the increase of their solid waste generation rates to ramp up their sustainable development efforts? Building up on the region’s advantages and changing the perspective on the way these cities economies work is a clear way of redefining the region’s growth
One of the least discussed issues associated with the growth and expansion of urbanization in Latin America is the increase of its cities’ solid waste generation rates. As cities continue to grow and expand across the region, it is evident that urban solid waste management efforts fall short. National and local authorities are often overwhelmed by the challenge of adequately managing the amount of waste generated in cities, with approximately 27% of waste ending up in uncontrolled open dumps and water bodies. Even though reportedly more than two thirds of waste is disposed of in landfills, environmental controls of these facilities are weak or non-existent. Furthermore, landfills are situated close to city centers and within metropolitan areas, sacrificing significant amounts of land area and posing major environmental risks and impacts to the urban environment.
Source: plenty.org
As stated by the SDGs, waste management is directly linked to improving urban health and living conditions, environmental protection and inclusive local economic development. Therefore, failing to recognize the importance of adequately managing solid waste could significantly hamper the region’s efforts to grow sustainably.
It is true that Latin American cities’ general governance challenges affect their capacity to manage solid waste, but, as income levels and lifestyle influence the amounts of waste generation and the type of waste that is generated, it is more complex for high-income cities than it is for middle and low-income ones to change their production and consumption patterns to reduce waste generation. The key question then is: How can Latin American cities decouple their economic growth from the increase of their solid waste generation rates to ramp up their sustainable development efforts?
Becoming circular
Circular economy aims at eliminating waste by enabling processes where waste serves as resources. It looks beyond the linear take-make-dispose production and consumption processes into “closed loop” restorative and regenerative systems, in which secondary raw materials become the main inputs, following either technical or biological life cycles. A circular model increases resilience and creates value replacing the “end of life” concept with restoration of components and products designed for disassembly and reuse, and the return of biological nutrients to the biosphere.
The opportunities for Latin American cities in this field become clear in the light of two very important facts. First, unlike the case of developed countries, in which most of the waste generated is inorganic - which carries greater treatment and final disposing challenges - 52% of the region’s municipal solid waste is classified as food and green waste, liable to be treated through composting and anaerobic digestion processes as part of biological waste-to-energy cycles. Second, this region’s average collection rate is 89.9%, higher than the worldwide average of 73.6%, which shows a certain level of the prioritization of this service. If improved by selective collection strategies, it could facilitate the recovery and restoration of non-biological waste. These characteristics are especially relevant to understand the relative advantages this region’s cities have and how they can be used to foster the implementation of alternative solutions based on circular economy to reduce and adequately manage their solid waste.
So far, the solid waste managerial efforts of Latin America’s cities -where they do exist- have focused on “end of pipe” measures and the final disposition of waste. However, the greater challenge to achieve sustainable economic growth, is re-directing public policy and regulation efforts at the source of waste. Enabling the systems through which materials and products can be designed and produced to retain their value at the end of their lifecycle can be an important catalizer of new business models that contribute to reduce waste generation rates. Thus, the gradual implementation of circular economy practices is a tangible opportunity to build upon, as demonstrated by different emerging examples associated with circularity in Latin America’s countries.
Colombia’s Green Network Program, -implemented in 2014- aims at operating selective collection and environmental management of home appliances at the end of their lifecycle, focusing mainly in urban areas, to recover and reuse some materials and safely dispose of their toxic content. Through this program, the private manufacturing companies have an active role on the disposal of the goods they produce and the recovery of secondary raw materials to be used in other production processes, thus responding to a circular business model. Furthermore, the Colombian government is also playing an important role in gradually shifting from a linear to a circular production process, with the implementation as of February of this year, of the National Policy on Electric and Electronic Appliances Waste, expanding the governance framework for post-consumption strategies to reduce the rates and negative impacts of technological waste.
But the impact of solid waste generation is not limited to the urban environment. When cities fail to adequately manage their urban waste it usually ends up in water streams and rivers, thus polluting water bodies in rural areas. Therefore, the need to implement the circular model as part of an integrated urban solid waste treatment strategy extends beyond cities. In Guatemala, the eco-bricks school building projects are an example of how communities in rural areas, with support from NGOs and local governments, have started to turn waste into resources, contributing to reduce the solid waste generated in urban areas. In these projects, packing plastic within Polyethylene Terephthalate (PET) bottles forms the eco-bricks, as a route for recovering plastic solid waste to be used for construction purposes, granted that certain conditions are complied with throughout the manufacturing process.
Source: blogs.worldbank.org
Some studies show that eco-bricks are a sustainable alternative material for construction with important social, environmental and economic benefits. Moreover, these projects have had a greater global impact through the creation of knowledge networks that enable the identification of secondary raw materials through cross-sectorial exchanges according to a vision of circular economy.
Furthermore, Organic Waste to Energy (OWtE) technologies have been developed and implemented in the region and have demonstrated social and economic benefits through waste management and energy systems improvement. In Central America, México and Brazil sugar cane bagasse and straw are treated through combustion processes playing an important role for the co-generation of electricity, to give just a few examples.
The use of secondary raw materials through up-cycling and open-loop recycling and the use of OWtE technologies are not yet enough to speak about a closed loop economy in Latin America. However, scaling up these practices, increasing public awareness and creating a relevant policy and regulatory framework could become important enablers to reduce urban solid waste in Latin America’s cities. Building up on the region’s advantages – high percentage of biological waste and high collection rates- and changing the perspective on the way these cities economies work by facilitating and promoting the creation of circular economic systems, is a clear way of redefining the region’s growth, following the path towards a more sustainable development.
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Carol Guerra holds a specialization in Managing and Financing Urban Infrastructure from the Institute of Housing and Urban Development Studies of Erasmus University Rotterdam. She also holds a bachelor’s degree Cum Laude in law and social sciences from Universidad Francisco Marroquín in Guatemala. She has ten years of experience in researching legal and institutional frameworks to understand their impact on urban development. Working as a consultant for multilateral organizations, national and local governments, she has contributed in the formulation of policies, laws and regulations for integral urban development and affordable housing in Guatemala and The Caribbean. She believes in the multidisciplinary approach to urban planning as a means to fully seize its opportunities for economic development and achieve urban inclusivity