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DOI 10.1007/s10163-013-0148-3
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Received: 6 February 2012 / Accepted: 28 May 2013 / Published online: 20 June 2013
Springer Japan 2013
R. Diaz (&)
Graduate School of International Environmental Engineering,
University of Kitakyushu, Yahata-nishi ku,
Honjo-higashi 2-2-9-301, Kitakyushu 807-0815, Japan
e-mail: rdiazb@yahoo.com
S. Otoma
Graduate School of International Environmental Engineering,
University of Kitakyushu, 1-1 Hibikino, Rm#205,
Wakamatsu ku, Kitakyushu 808-0135, Japan
e-mail: otoma@kitakyu-u.ac.jp
123
Introduction
According to the Peruvian Ministry of the Environment
(MINAM) [1], the generation of municipal solid waste has
increased considerably. The total amount per capita
changed from 0.70 to 1.08 kg/inhabitant/day between
2001 and 2007, and the trend is still a growth of about
4 % per year in many cities. Although phasing out
dumpsites is a priority in national policy, it becomes
increasingly difficult for local governments to find land
for new landfills while current dumpsites are near to
collapse.
This situation increases the importance of waste
reduction activities within solid waste management
strategies, although most of these activities are informal.
Current municipal programs on recycling and composting represent only 0.48 and 0.27 % of national waste
generation, respectively. On the other hand, informal
recycling (waste pickers, itinerant buyers, and others)
produces a reduction of 12.9 %, and informal pig feeding
contributes with 2.6 %. Recyclable materials (paper,
glass, plastic, and metals) are picked along the streets,
just before waste is collected, and from open dumps.
Food waste for pig feeding is collected from restaurants
and hotels [2].
Current informal activities, if improved and promoted,
can become the basis for the introduction of larger and
more sustainable waste reduction systems. Consequently,
this paper contributes to the literature on solid waste
management in two senses: one by proposing a methodology to simulate and analyze separate collection, and the
second by presenting a more complete picture of the
recycling and composting business, identifying cooperation
risks that affect collection.
109
Literature review
The literature on informal recycling in developing countries has mainly focused on qualitative aspects such as
collective action, partnerships, and stakeholders involvement [35]. In Latin American countries such as Peru [6]
and Colombia [7], scholars describe the current situation of
waste pickers and their struggles to be recognized and
included within urban solid waste management systems.
More quantitative data come from Gomes and Nobrega
[8], who present the costbenefit analysis of a separate
collection project in Brazil, Yepes et al. [9], who analyze
the times incurred in the daily activities of waste picking,
and the MINAM [2], which presents a selection of municipal recycling programs with formalization of waste
pickers in Peru. While all these studies identify the elimination of scavenging and digging in waste bags as the
major improvements, none of them estimates the effects on
yields and costs (see Table 1).
Regarding the estimation of costs, Ishikawa [11] presents the Grid City Model, which is designed for the
context of recycling operations in Japanese cities. There,
recyclables are taken by residents themselves to designed
collection points. In this paper, we develop a model where
there are no such collection points: recyclables are collected door-to-door by informal collectors using manpushed vehicles (barrows or tricycles). However, these two
models can be utilized in combination when there are two
phases of collection: the first phase, when collectors take
recyclables from residents to intermediate recycling centers
or waste shops, which corresponds to our case study; and
the second phase, when recyclables are transported from
recycling centers to industries, where Ishikawas model is
City
Source
separation
kg/collector/
day
US$/ta
Vehicle
Income/
collector/
day
Gomes and
Nobrega [8]
Joao Pessoa
(pilot
project),
Brazil
Medellin,
Colombia
Yes
75
70
Barrows
USD$
3.0
No
6070
Bags,
barrows,
tricycles
USD$
26
MINAM [2],
Ruz Ros et al.
[6]
Average
(Peru)
No
20
120
Bags,
barrows,
tricycles
USD$
2.5
MINAM [2]
Pilot
municipal
projects
(Peru)
Yes
40560
80120
Tricycles
USD$
1.56
123
110
Separate collection
Our model analyzes curbside separate collection. A diagram showing the operations of separate collection is
presented in Fig. 1, where B is the travel distance in a
collection zone and D0 is the distance between the recycling or composting center and that collection zone.
CColl K P NV K NV P
Estimation of yields
We consider that there are two main speeds during separate collection. The first is speed to transit along the
streets and is given by the speed of smooth curbside
collection (approximately 3 km/h). Additionally, there is
the speed to load up the vehicle, which is given by the
activities of scavenging, digging in the bags, and loading
the waste. Yields are then estimated considering how
much waste a waste picker can gather in a period of
8.5 h.
Yepes et al. [9] measured that a waste picker takes 6 out
of 8.2 h in gathering 70 kg of recyclables. Then, the unitary time to load up his/her barrow [tu* in Eq. (3)] is 6 h/
70 kg or 86 h/t. In Peru, where the average yield is only
20 kg/waste picker/day, the time for loading up is
approximately 300 h/t.
Another factor contributing to yield is the percentage of
waste bags that are available at the moment of separate
collection. We label this parameter as residents
participation.
Time:1r
2
3
Time:1r Ts
4
Lz
Wz
B
W
, in t/km, is the distribution of waste along
Wz
Lz
the streets in the collection zone Z
5
Wz
W
Ceiling
N Ceiling
Ts
Time:1r
N
NV Ceiling
Nmax
Nmax
6
7
8
123
B 2D
tu tL
v
tu W tu
Estimation of costs
Collection cost is estimated considering man-pushed
vehicles (barrows or 1 m3 tricycles), with collectors (waste
pickers) earning 3 US$/day (in Peru, the minimum wage is
about 6.5 US$/day) and working 8.5 h a day. There is only
one collector per vehicle. Variables such as round trips,
NV
Time.1r
B
D0
Ts
v
tu
tu*
tL
Wz
Lz
W
N
Nmax
111
Results
Separate collection: simulation cases
Case
Additionally, there is an improvement due to shorter distances to the recycling center, but considering that collectors make only one round trip per day, this improvement is
marginal.
Finally, when the collection frequency is changed to
once per week, the distribution of waste along the streets (t/
km) increases; however, the time to load up the vehicle still
predominates over transit and preparation times and there
is almost no variation in yields and costs.
At a unitary loading time of 30 h/t, collectors use up 6 h
in loading up a vehicle with a 200-kg capacity. This means
that they can only make one round trip per day (for a
time constraint Ts of 8.5 h/day) and explains the fact that
costs cannot be lower than 20 US$/t, even for weekly
collection.
In recycling programs in Peruvian cities, digging in the
bags and scavenging are eliminated, but under the new
system, collectors have to knock on the doors of residents,
receive bags with recyclables, verify them, and even weigh
them. As a consequence, the total loading time remains
lengthy. We estimate that, if collectors were able to make
two round trips per day, the average collection cost would
decrease to 10 US$/t. However, this situation would be
possible only if residents put recyclables in designated
places or along the streets in advance.
Source
separation
Distance to recycling/
composting center
Frequency
(a) No cooperation
No
2 km
Every day
170
Some
2 km
Every day
100
Yes
(c.1) 2 km
Every day
30
(c.2) 1 km
Every day
123
112
123
Discussion
The simulation and costbenefit analysis presented in this
paper indicate that separate collection costs in residential
areas can be as large as plant costs and, on the whole, the
level of cooperation among waste pickers, residents, and
the municipality affect business profitability.
Additionally, we observe that recycling has a much
greater margin than composting. With good cooperation,
the recycling business is very attractive and the incomes of
collectors (waste pickers) can improve and even reach the
minimum wage (complete formalization).
In the case of composting, the net income is always
negative (net cost), and only when there is good cooperation, this net cost can be lower than the alternative
113
Conclusions
1.
123
114
Recycling
Composting
Case
No cooperation
Good cooperation
No cooperation
Good cooperation
t/km/day
0.06
0.10
0.13
0.20
10 %
10 %
100 %
25 %
115.0
22.2
110.0
21.0
15.0
15.0
20.0
20.0
2.48
132.5
2.48
39.7
2.48
132.5
2.48
43.5
130.0
87.2
117.0
19.6
-15.5
77.3
-112.9
Yield (kg/collector/day)
36
204.9
36.9
214.0
630
178
1,240
342
-23.9
Case study is the district of Chiclayo in Peru: 46 t/day of recyclables and 92 t/day of organic waste that can be recovered [12, 13]
2.
3.
References
1. The Peruvian Ministry of the Environment (MINAM) (2008)
Annual report on municipal solid waste management. October
2008, Lima, Peru
2. The Peruvian Ministry of the Environment (MINAM) (2010)
Report on solid waste recovery. June 2010, Lima, Peru
3. Baud ISA, Grafakos S, Hordijk M, Post J (2001) Quality of life
and alliances in solid waste management: contributions to urban
sustainable development. Cities 18(1):312
123