Implementation of Communal Recycling Programmes towards Sustainable Waste Management in the City of Tshwane

摘要

A major problem in the City of Tshwane, the administrative capital of SouthAfrica, is that all the Municipal Solid Waste generated in the city is currently being landfilledwith very little recycling initiatives.Selective waste collection and sorting waste fractions out of the waste stream has become apopular survival strategy for the economically excluded population in Tshwane. Reclaimers(waste pickers) work under severe and chronic occupational health and injury risk on landfillsites. Both society and the middleman who purchase their recovered materials exploit andmarginalize them. Environmental and social awareness is however a growing issue in SouthAfrica.The study was conducted with the objective of investigating and proposing communityrecycling programmes to sustainably improve the environment and livelihoods of reclaimersin Tshwane. Successful established community recycling programs in Brazil wasinvestigated to verify their social, economic and environmental impacts in a sustainable wastemanagement respective.The study focused on Tshwane, but it can be argued that the findings can be implemented inany other South African municipality, and in other emerging countries in Africa.