Too Poor to Care? Pro-poor Solid Waste Management in Manila

This study of pro-poor solid waste management (conducted in Manila 2006) look at waste both as a health problem and as a livelihood for the poor. Pro-poor solid waste management policies optimize social- environmental- and economic benefits for the poor. In practice, this mean creating job-security for informal waste-pickers (scavengers), establish subsidies to community based recycling schemes and empower local leadership structures. The formalization process in the Philippines have undermined scavengers? traditional safety nets and ?hijacked? informal bonding (micro-level) social capital to the benefit of institutionalised (maso-level) social capital. Along with health and cleanliness aspects, creating ?cash from trash? is the foremost incentive for urban poor communities to participate in a Community-based Solid Waste Management (CBSWM) project. The projects can create social capital for the poor through community mobilisation and vertical bridging- and linking networks established in barangay's (local administration) Multisectoral Waste Management Committees (MSWMC) or recycling cooperatives. Communities need to be given local ownership of the projects through real decision-making capacities