3 March, 2014 | Waste Management
GIZ have announced the finalisation of their work on Operator Models, focusing on how services for municipal solid waste management are delivered around the world, and analyzing the success factors and conditions for the different models. Based on an in-depth Sourcebook, a practical Guidance Paper was developed as a decision maker’s toolfor public authorities, development agencies and practitioners working to improve municipal solid waste management practices. Professor David C Wilson was one of the co-authors of the report, alongside Réka Soós, Andrew Whiteman and Cosmin Briciu of RWA and Ekkehard Schwehn of ERM Germany.
This project was part of the German Technical Cooperation Agency – GIZ’s sector project on Concepts for Sustainable Waste Management, which is a challenge to most local and national governments in developing countries. It aimed to fill a particular knowledge gap, on the delivery of waste management services or ‘operator models’ in cities around the world. Operator models are analysed in terms of the interactions between three key institutional components: the ‘client’ responsible for ensuring provision of a reliable municipal solid waste management (MSWM) service that meets the required standard; the operator who delivers the service on-the-ground; and the revenue collector who collects fees from the users. Theanalytical framework focuses on both the physical components of MSWM and the governance aspects. Information on existing operator models was collected from some 134 case studies, of which 28 were short-listed and five examined in the field.
The evidence suggests that all forms of ‘operator model’ for the delivery of solid waste and recycling services can be appropriate, with each model likely to be more suitable in particular ‘niches’ and according to the local circumstances. This contradicts the oft-presented view that private-sector service delivery is always better than public sector services, or that large service providers are ‘better’ than small informal sector or micro-enterprise service providers – the evidence is that all can work well given the right local conditions.
The detailed Source Book and Guidance Paper provide much information to assist in selecting an appropriate operator model tailored to the specific requirements of a particular local situation. The key findings focus on how framework conditions determine local objectives when selecting an operator model; the characteristics of a good model; conditions and capacities influencing the choice between public and private sector, and between municipal or inter-municipal, models; and detailed comparison of options for providing specific MSWM services.
12 December, 2013 | Waste Management
Wales and England have published their national Waste Prevention Programmes. Both see waste prevention and resource efficiency as an opportunity to promote growth while protecting the environment and moving towards a more sustainable and circular economy. Prof David C Wilson contributed to the evidence base that has underpinned both programmes, and also chaired the stakeholder Steering Group convened by the Welsh Government to review the evidence base and advise on finalisation of the consultation document published earlier this year.
All EU Member States are required under the revised Waste Framework Directive to prepare a national Waste Prevention Programme. The deadline for publication was set at 12 December 2013 – England’s ‘Prevention is better than cure – The role of waste prevention in moving to a more resource efficient economy’ was published on 11.12.13, Wales’s ‘Towards Zero Waste – One Wales: One Planet – The Waste prevention Programme for Wales’’ on 03.12.13 and Scotland’s ‘Zero Waste – Safeguarding Scotland’s Resources: Blueprint for a More Resource Efficient and Circular Economy’ on 02.10.13.
All three published programmes focus on the actions that householders and businesses can take to reduce waste, while at the same time saving money; and also on the actions that Government will take to facilitate the process. A key difference is that both Wales and Scotland have set targets for waste prevention, while England has not. CIWM have welcomed the English Strategy as a useful first step, but compared it negatively to both Wales and Scotland ‘who have taken a more proactive and ambitious approach’.
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DCW advised Defra (the English Environment Ministry) on their waste and resources evidence programme, and in particular on the evidence relating to waste prevention, from 2004 to March 2013. He managed for Defra three of the four main evidence reports cited to underpin their published programme. He advised on a portfolio of some 12 research projects on household waste prevention undertaken between 2005-2008; managed a major international Household Waste Prevention Evidence Review (HWPER),published by Defra in October 2009 and in the peer-reviewed literature in March 2010; managed a similar international Business Waste Prevention Evidence Review (BWPER), published by Defra in February 2012 and as an open access paper in the peer-reviewed literature in September 2012; and managed ‘Waste Prevention Actions for Priority Wastes: Economic Assessment through Marginal Abatement Cost Curves’ (the MACC report), completed in December 2012.
20 November, 2013 | Waste Management
Following the Rio+20 Earth Summit, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) was mandated to prepare an authoritative global outlook of challenges, trends and policies on waste and resource management.UNEP’s International Environment and Technology Centre (IETC) and the International Solid Waste Association (ISWA) have this week announcedthat work has now started on the first Global Waste Management Outlook, aiming for a 2015 publication. Professor David C Wilson has been appointed as Editor in Chief.
The UNEP mandate to prepare the Global Waste Management Outlook (GWMO) originated from the outcome of the Rio+20 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development in 2012. Preparation is being led by the IETC in Osaka, japan, in asociation with ISWA. A first stakeholder consultation meeting was held 8-9 July at the UNESCO Headquarters, Paris.
The Editorial Team includes DCW as Editor in Chief; Costas Velis as Advisor and Contributor; Lead authors Ljiljana Rodic, Prasad Modak, and Otto Simonett; and Mona Iyer as Case Study Editor. Mini CVs for each core team member are on the IETC website.
Wide consultation with a broad group of stakeholders including decision makers, the world’s leading institutions and experts in waste management will be central to the development of the GWMO. The first consultations in the format of e-regional consultations on the first draft annotated chapter outlines were launched today, 20 December 2013, and close on 27 January 2014.
The final document is aimed to be concluded within the first quarter of 2015 and is proposed to be a valuable tool for decision makers, decision formers and professionals, offering a validated comparative analysis on the state of waste management around the globe, based on standardised policy indicators and benchmarks.
UNEP IETC and ISWA are seeking further contributors to the project particularly sponsors to help support future in person consultations. If you are interested in contributing to the GWMO then please contact the GWMO Project Manager at [email protected], cc[email protected]
27 September, 2013 | Publication, Waste Management
DCW is the corresponding author of a paper published today on: Waste management and recycling in the former Soviet Union: The City of Bishkek, Kyrgyz Republic (Kyrgyzstan). This is an important contribution to the literature, as systematic information on solid waste management in the former Soviet Union is scarce, and a particular focus of this investigation was to characterise the nature and extent of recycling activity in the city following the end of the state-sponsored recycling system. The lead author, Natasha Sim, is a former student of DCW, and will present the paper in Session 14 of the ISWA World Congress 2013 in Vienna on 8 October. The paper was selected for publication in a Special Issue of the ISWA peer-reviewed journal Waste Management & Research, published to coincide with the Congress. The Special Issue is Open Access, so the full paper can be downloaded free of charge.
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The paper presents a solid waste management profile for the city of Bishkek in the Kyrgyz Republic (referred to here as Kyrgyzstan). The municipal solid waste management system is described following the standard ISWM UN-Habitat benchmarking methodology and the results are compared to 20 cities worldwide. The feedback from further testing the UN-Habitat ISWM benchmarking protocol has fed back into further work to develop the next generation of ISWM benchmark indicators, progress on which DCW will also be presenting at the Vienna Congress.
8 April, 2013 | Waste Management
| The Welsh Government has launched a public consultation on its national Waste Prevention Programme. The programme focuses on the actions that householders and businesses can take to reduce waste, while at the same time saving money; and also on the possible interventions that Government can take to facilitate the process. Professor David C Wilson was invited to chair the stakeholder Steering Group convened to review the evidence base and advise on finalisation of the consultation document prior to its publication.
All EU Member States are required under the revised Waste Framework Directive to prepare a national Waste Prevention Programme. The deadline for publication is December 2013, and Wales is one of the first countries to consult on its proposed programme. A series of industry workshops will be held during May to help elaborate the proposals, and the consultation closes on 20 June 2013.
The Waste Prevention Programme will ensure that householders and businesses in Wales are able to reduce: the quantity of waste, including through the re-use of products or the extension of the life span of products; the adverse impacts of the generated waste on the environment and human health; and the content of harmful substances in materials and products.
Professor Wilson has worked extensively on waste prevention over the last ten years, and has published a number of peer-reviewed papers on the international evidence base for both household and business waste prevention. |
8 April, 2012 | Waste Management
Sustainable solid waste management (SWM) is a challenge to most local and national governments in developing countries. The German Technical Cooperation Agency – GIZ has recently launched a 3-year programme to develop pilot projects and guidance materials to fill specific gaps in the knowledge base on sustainable SWM. The study focusing on the delivery of waste management services (‘operator models’) has been commissioned to ERM and Wasteaware – Professor David C Wilson is global advisor and lead analyst in the project team.
UPDATE 03 March 2014: The final Operator Model reports have now been published.
Past experience has shown that there is no such thing as ‘a standard operator model’. Contexts in which the various solid waste management systems exist and operate vary diversely. The team will collect and analyse case study experiences in various low- and middle-income countries and different areas along the waste chain to identify what works under which circumstances. The case studies will be analysed in terms of:
– What services are provided?
– Who provides those services and under what conditions?
– How are the services managed, supervised and paid for? and
– At what (geographical) level are the services provided?
The results will be presented in a ‘source book’ and guidance paper to assist decision-makers in selecting the most appropriate and efficient model (or mix of models) for service delivery in any particular local situation.
