SIEMENS

The huge landfills on the outskirts of Cochabamba, El Alto, La Paz, and Santa Cruz are plain to see. Waste collectors — in most cases women and children — sift through the foul-smelling mountains of garbage filling sacks with whatever recyclables or other usable items they might find. More than 3,000 tons of waste is produced in these four cities every day. Swisscontact, a development organization, estimates that 80 percent of it could be recycled, and that waste separation and recycling could create 20,000 jobs. However, most of the garbage ends up unseparated in landfills or on the streets — even though 70 percent of the population in Bolivia’s major cities are served by waste disposal systems. The problem is that smaller municipalities don’t have enough funds to handle the trash. “In such places, 40 percent of the people burn garbage, 33 percent throw it away in green spaces, some 16 percent dump it in rivers and seven percent simply bury it in their own backyards,” says Matthias Nabholz, an onsite project manager for Swisscontact.

To improve waste management in many cities, the Siemens Foundation began supporting the “Jobs and Income with Environmental Management” project in 2010. Launched by Swisscontact in 2009, the project is designed to create public-private partnerships capable of gradually establishing comprehensive systems for waste separation; the economical recycling of plastic, glass, paper, metal, and organic waste; and properly disposing of residual waste in landfill sites. “We’re using existing urban structures,” says Gerhard Hütter, the project’s manager at the Siemens Foundation. “We work with city districts — the lowest level in the municipal administration hierarchy. Here, district officials reach agreements with ‘informal’ waste collectors.”

The latter collect recyclables one to three times a week in specific assigned areas, cleanly separate what they find, and bring everything to nearby collection centers or compost heaps. The collection centers sell the recyclable material to companies in Bolivia and abroad. The income thus generated is paid to the collectors or invested in waste awareness campaigns. The project’s partners also run an educational program for children and adults that has already reached around 75,000 households. At the end of 2010, 200 waste collectors — 40 percent of them women — were working on the project. “In 2010, their efforts rescued around 7,000 tons of recyclable waste from landfills,” says Hütter.

The right incentives help the project to function properly. For example, waste collectors are issued work clothes, handcarts, and information on hazardous waste. Just as important is their steady daily income of around $6 per day and an improvement in their social status. The project also supports budding entrepreneurs by offering continuing educational opportunities. “We can already report some success stories,” Nabholz says proudly. One of them involves Daniela Bolívar, a graphic designer from La Paz. She now runs a small recycling company that converts used plastic sheeting for advertisements into bags and accessories (see picture left).

“Still, over the long term you need to have binding legal stipulations for waste management,” says Hütter. The issue is currently being addressed by the project’s partners and city authorities. “Cochabamba has announced plans to provide $1 million for the project’s expansion, and La Paz has appointed its own project coordinator,” says Nabholz. This is important, because every ton of waste that’s disposed generates costs of around $30. And that is by no means peanuts for a country like Bolivia. The first project phase is scheduled to run until the end of 2012.

If possible, the partners would like to offer daycare services for the children of collectors for as long as they continue to work. Cooperation with local schools is very important to the Siemens Foundation. “We’d like to get children and young people focused as early as possible on the environment, health, and hygiene,” says Hütter. In the future, the project’s partners also want to pay special attention to problems related to toxic waste and the growing amounts of electronic scrap.