Rubber waste

Since the publication of the famous book Work from Waste (Jon Vogler, 1981), there has been silence in the field of small-scale resource recovery, which often takes place within the so-called informal sector. No second edition or new books have appeared dealing specifically with micro-recycling businesses.

Within that time, however, the scale of resource recovery in certain economically less developed countries has increased at an impressive rate. These experiences deserve to be documented and disseminated to other interested parties. Government authorities often regard informal waste recovery activities with disdain.

It is usually the poorest people, often those at the margins of society, who roam the streets and waste dumps to find items that can be salvaged and sold, to earn their daily bread. Scavengers are often seen as social outcasts, their work as a nuisance to modern urban life. Also small and micro-entrepreneurs who run small workshops producing such items as plastic pellets or rubber trolley wheels do often not get a license or are not legally connected to the electric grid. Nevertheless, municipal authorities and urban elites everywhere are facing mounting problems in dealing with the growing volumes of solid waste.

Conventional approaches haveincluded the purchase of high-tech equipment such as compaction vehicles, incinerators and computerized routing programmes, usually with little regard for its potential impacts. In particular, potentially valuable components of the waste are destroyed, resulting in the loss of means of survival for the vast numbers of people who work in the informal waste sector. Although a great deal has been written about the need for appropriate technology, decision makers in less developed countries, as well as donor agencies, seem to have underestimated the complexity and thus the vulnerability of such high-tech waste technology, as well as its high maintenance costs and the need for skilled operators.

The atmosphere however, is changing, and attention is now focusing on finding ways of dealing with the problem of waste in low-income cities that do not depend only on high-tech equipment. Waste technology that is feasible in high-income countries is usually inappropriate for the socio-economic conditions in less industrialized countries. The most appropriate solutions are now regarded as those that take into account the needs of the people who are already involved in the (informal) recycling business, and the financial capabilities of municipalities and national governments. Whereas industrialized countries have often taken the road of capital-intensive development, in low-income countries the large labour surpluses and low salaries should favour the choice of labour-intensive options. Wider issues such as the availability of space, climatic factors, and the existence and enforcement of environmental legislation also influence the choice of the most appropriate approach adapted to local circumstances. In many newly industrializing countries, various types of local machinery and equipment have been developed in the recycling sector. A wealth of valuable experience has been gained in adapting and upgrading resource recovery processes so far, even though the processes in use could still be improved. One way to achieve this, might be by providing the micro-entrepreneurs with scientific knowledge at no or low cost. Innovation could also be stimulated through the exchange of information (knowledge and experience) between micro-entrepreneurs in various parts of the world: the so-called South, South technology transfer. In the research on which this series of publications is based, many different options were identified that could be helpful to entrepreneurs elsewhere. For example:

- Glass blowers in Cairo produce bowls from used glass. Their products, however, often contain air bubbles causing breakages, in contact with a hot liquid. In Manila, microentrepreneurs found a solution by changing the design of the furnace and putting an additive into the glass: the bubbles disappeared and the glass became heat-resistant.

- Waste plastics are often smeared with sticky liquids and are mixed with organic matter. It makes the sorting of plastics a dirty job for the thousands of scavengers at road and dump sites in various cities. In India, this problem has been tackled by washing the waste plastics in a large concrete basin with water pumped by a small electric engine before sorting. The washed plastics are then dried in a rotating mesh drum and are spread out on the ground to dry in the sun. This approach has helped to improve working conditions considerably: the waste plastics to be sorted are almost clean. Such adaptations of processes and technology found in the Philippines or India may be useful for micro-entrepreneurs elsewhere to improve the quality of their products or the working conditions. Though these changes sometimes will result in higher costs, they will also result in increasing the monetary value of the waste products, and thus increase incomes and employment opportunities. This book therefore presents several recycling activities set up by entrepreneurs, the technical and commercial problems involved and the solutions found. A large proportion of the waste in less developed countries is recycled, and there are many success stories of the recycling sector, but little has been documented in terms of microbusinesses. The experiences of individuals are passed on from parents to children and perhaps neighbouring entrepreneurs may benefit from innovations. But only rarely does information from Asia, for example, reach entrepreneurs in Sub-Saharan Africa. Documentation of this locally adapted recycling knowledge and experience could assist many entrepreneurs in other less industrialized countries either to set up or to improve their businesses. It could also demonstrate to decision makers that feasible opportunities exist for removing and recovering solid waste. Commercial formal enterprises do see the role such small recycling enterprises play: they buy their 'raw' materials or semi- manufactured products from them.

There are, naturally, many differences in economic and industrial development between, for example, Asian and African countries. It may not always be possible for some experiences to be replicated. Asia, for example, has a longer (formal) industrial tradition as compared to Africa, which has its spin off to the informal micro-enterprises in the sense of availability of knowledge and of second-hand machinery and (locally made) spare parts. These larger and more formal industries also provide a market for the semi-manufactured products. These differences in economic development, plus other differences such as in population size,

influence the demand from the market and the waste materials produced.

This book is the third in a series on Urban Solid Waste Recovery, and represents an attempt to document the experiences of small-scale recycling activities in cities around the world. The first book in this series was published in 1993 and dealt specifically with organic waste. The topics to be covered in the on coming publications are: 'Hazardous Waste, Resource Recovery of Household Batteries, Photographic Materials and used motor oil: Existing Practices’ and “Latrine Pit Emptying: Small-scale Options. While the first three publications (Organic, Plastic and Rubber Waste) described the products made, the markets covered and the technologies used for recycling, 'Hazardous Practices' will pay specific attention to the recovery and safe storage of hazardous waste materials. Handling such materials can affect the health of employees, and improper disposal may affect the surrounding environment. 'Latrine emptying' will on the other hand pay attention to experience in low-income areas of several cities with the latrine emptying service offered by small entrepreneurs and their embedding in the municipal sanitation service. Since this latter publication is dealing with liquid waste, the name of the series will from then onwards change in 'Urban Waste Series' The recovery of solid urban waste certainly has the potential to contribute to solutions of problems such as unemployment and insufficient waste removal. There is scope for implementation on a much broader scale than has been the case so far. If the urban poor populations of less industrialized countries are to benefit, however, the range of small-scale, low-cost and environmentally sound options needs to be developed and improved. It is hoped that this book will make a contribution.