‘Wasteaware’ benchmark indicators to measure the performance of a city’s SWM system

As the culmination of five year’s work by a large team around the world, DCW is delighted to announce the publication today, in the peer reviewed journal Waste Management, of a seminal paper on the development and use of the ‘Wasteaware’ benchmark indicators for integrated sustainable waste management in cities. Solid waste management (SWM) is a key utility service, but data is often lacking. Measuring their SWM performance helps a city establish priorities for action. The Wasteaware benchmark indicators provide a self-assessment and diagnostic tool to measure both technical and governance aspects; have been tested in more than 50 cities on 6 continents; and enable consistent comparison between cities and countries and monitoring progress.

The integrated sustainable waste management (ISWM ) framework is used to analyse a city’s solid waste management system as two overlapping ‘triangles’ – one comprising the three physical components, i.e. collection, recycling, and disposal, and the other comprising three governance aspects, i.e. inclusivity; financial sustainability; and sound institutions and proactive policies. The Wasteaware indicator set combines relatively well-established quantitative indicators for waste generation, composition and the three main physical components or infrastructure, with a corresponding, qualitative, composite indicator for the ‘quality’ of service provision for each physical component; and in addition five qualitative, composite indicators that assess performance for the three main governance aspects.

The paper builds on pioneering work for UN-Habitat’s Solid Waste Management in the World’s Cities . The indictors were further developed and used in a comparative analysis of 20 cities . This experience was fed into a revised indicator set developed as part of the GIZ project onOperator Models . This in turn led to a further round of testing and revision, which has culminated in the ‘Wasteaware’ benchmark indicators, which have now been used in some form in more than 50 cities around the world. This experience confirms the utility of the indicators in allowing comprehensive performance measurement and comparison of both ‘hard’ physical components and ‘soft’ governance aspects; and in prioritising ‘next steps’ in developing a city’s solid waste management system, by identifying both local strengths that can be built on and weak points to be addressed. The Wasteaware ISWM indicators are applicable to a broad range of cities with very different levels of income and solid waste management practices. Their wide application as a standard methodology will help to fill the historical data gap – a User Manual https://corazoninc.com/cialis-cheap-20mg/ has been published alongside the paper.

DCW in Argentina

Professor David C Wilson visited Argentina earlier this month at the invitation of the British Embassy. The Embassy had been asked for help with addressing their solid waste management challenges by the Province of Buenos Aires, and commissioned DCW to assess the priority needs of the Province and to advise on where those needs are best matched by UK expertise. DCW was also a keynote speaker at a conference on 7 November organised by the University of San Martin.

DCW used the ‘Wasteaware’ Integrated Sustainable Waste Management (ISWM) benchmark indicators, which he has developed over the last 5 years with an international team, both to gather information on a systematic basis from meetings with local experts, and to provide a diagnostic tool for identifying priority needs at a high level. DCW presented a paper updating progress on developing the indicators at the ISWM World Congress in October 2013.

ISWA 2006 World Congress

Professor David C Wilson presented 2 papers at this week’s ISWA Congress in Copenhagen. His keynote paper was on Development Drivers in Waste Management, which explored how the key drivers have varied historically and how they vary today, both around the world and depending on a particular stakeholder’s perspective. Click here to view the paper, or the presentation. He also co-authored a paper with Defra on the role of research to provide the evidence base to underpin new waste and resources policy and legislation. Click here to view the paper or the presentation. ISWA (the International Solid Waste Association) is the international professional body for waste and resources managers.