Analysis of informal waste management using system dynamic modelling

Abstract

The informal sector is the backbone for sustainable waste management in a high population density country such as India. Moreover, the operations of the value chain of informal waste management provide direct or indirect benefits for the environment and human resource development. Unfortunately this sector has always been regarded as a fraudulent activity that sustains without paying taxes, creates unjust competition, and weakens unions and the regulatory structure of the government. These perceptions often lead India to pursue a policy that intentionally or inadvertently amounts to retributive measures. However, the alarming increase in the rate of waste generation has coerced the governments of several countries to incorporate the indispensable informal sector in their policy initiatives. Accordingly, this paper presents a pioneering system dynamics based model (using STELLA Architect software) to analyse the impact of the recent policies and decision strategies on the effectiveness of the informal waste management sector. The paper explores the case of Delhi, India to illustrate the model and provides valuable insights into the urban waste management process. The results of the model demonstrate that significant economic and environmental benefits can be realized by leveraging the natural strengths of the informal sector. Further, it is shown that efficient implementation of policies related to informal waste management can reduce the recyclable waste in the landfills dumped by municipal corporations or otherwise to zero. Also, waste recycling capacity can be increased from 39 percent to 100 percent by strengthening IRC (informal recycling coefficient, introduced in this paper) in a span of 30 years. This increase will have positive impact on land usage, environment degradation and operation cost used in the formal waste collection.