38 / 92
38
User fees for solid waste management
services and its challenges
Public municipalities and private firms have many costs to cover
for managing solid waste, including transportation and fleet
maintenance, fuel, paying waste collectors, and maintaining
treatment and sorting facilities.
Cost recovery tariffs and fees are commonly used to cover these
costs, especially in the case of commercially-driven operators or
to finance quality improvements. However, it is often difficult to
collect or increase tariffs/fees to cover the real costs or to finance
improvements due to a perceived lack of public demand for
services and/or and a lack of public willingness to pay. Fixed fees
do not take into account the variability in solid waste produced
among households. Different social groups often differ in their
willingness to pay for municipal waste services (UNEP, 2005).
Income-based tariffs can incorporate the ability to pay into user
charges, while surveys on acceptable levels of payment can
include the public in setting rates (GIZ, 2015). However, these
types of charges offer little incentive for waste reduction.
Some tariffs also aim to reduce the amount of solidwaste produced.
‘Pay-as-you-throw’ schemes are one example, charging fees to
households and firms based on volumes and weights of discarded
waste. This can lower the costs for poor families in peripheral regions
who produce little waste and cannot pay service fees. However, it
can also encourage illegal dumping and requires investment in both
monitoring systems and enforcement strategies. Paymentsmay also
be more irregular than with weekly or monthly charges, creating
budgeting challenges for service providers.
Both private and publicmodels for SWMare used across theworld
and there is no evidence to suggest that either is more efficient
Generating a culture of paying for services to cover all or part of operational costs, is an important
step in improving SWM. Several mountain cities have been successful in this regard, often as a result
of new, higher-quality services. Nairobi is a good example; people are more willing to pay when their
neighbourhoods are clean and free of waste (Scheinberg,Wilson and Rodic-Wiersma, 2010). The delivery
of services throughtheprivatesector (includinglargecompaniesandmicroenterprises)aswell as through
cooperatives and community associations has also been shown to be effective in developing countries.
In more remote mountain regions, community-based financing based on voluntary mechanisms,
tourism revenue or the sale of recyclable materials (where possible) may be more appropriate.
in recovering costs (UNEP and ISWA, 2015). Recent approaches
often entail greater collaboration between state and non-state
actors – be it private investors, informal workers, central and
local state organizations or volunteers. However, all waste service
providers need to recognize that vulnerable and low-income
households may not be able to afford increases in fees that
come with improvements in SWM or profit-seeking in the waste
sector. In addition, poor households in remote mountain regions
that are not served by municipal services do benefit. This may
also be the case for slums and rural communities. Thus, raising
awareness of the importance of waste management and the
participation of all stakeholders is a necessary precondition for
implementing user fees. In some cases, it may be necessary to
charge higher fees to higher income households, to support to
those who cannot afford to pay. Systems for collecting variable
taxes and tariffs must be transparent and acknowledge public
needs and traditions, to work effectively (UNEP and ISWA, 2015).
Earning a living fromwaste: informal waste
pickers
The reality in many developing and transitional countries is that
municipal services are often not able to cover all households. A
common approach for activists and residents is to self-organize
to tackle local challenges.
Informalwastepickersoftenfill thisgapandcontribute significantly
to waste management by collecting, sorting, trading and
sometimes processing waste materials. Globally, of the estimated
19-24 million people currently working in waste management
and recycling, only 4 million are in formal employment. The
rest are informal workers, mainly waste pickers in developing
countries, many of themwomen (ILO, 2013). In some countries, the
informal waste sector employs as much as 1 per cent of the urban
Financing SolidWaste Management in
Communities and Cities