Abstracts

100 added to the economy via effective management principles. When properly implemented, waste-to-energy methods can help unlock the economic value of waste. More specifically, in urban areas the successful implementation of anaerobic digestion (AD) methods of organic waste, including but not limited to food waste, can increase opportunities for economic development in the form of entrepreneurial opportunity as well as serve as a source for job growth. Such an approach to managing municipal waste offers a promising solution to a nested set of environmental, health, and economic issues facing South Africa’s urban citizens. The Current State of Municipal Solid Waste Management South Africa first recognized waste mismanagement as a national concern with the 2008 passage of the National Environmental Management: Waste Act, 2008 , under the auspices of the Department of Environmental Affairs. Prior to this measure, there was no formal direction on waste-related matters at the national level. Motivated by an increasing concern for environmental sustainability and good public health, both rights guaranteed to citizens under the constitution, a primary goal of the Waste Act is to reduce waste, promote recycling, and capitalize on the recovery and reuse of waste. The Waste Act established national oversight for waste management, while recognizing implementation must occur at the provincial and municipal levels. The Waste Act required development of a National Waste Management Strategy (NWMS), created in 2011 as a guide to provide specific tangible and implementable recommendations and action items for government authorities at the municipal level. Despite the efforts at the national level, however, most problems the Waste Act intended to solve persist and continue to grow, especially in South Africa’s urban regions. Johannesburg and its surrounding metropolitan area have a population of 10.5 million people. From 1950 (911,000) to 2019 (5.7 million), the population of Johannesburg city alone increased by approximately 500% (United Nations). This growth has overstressed all forms of public and private infrastructure, including the management of solid waste and, when combined with competition for funding from more pressing concerns, diminishes hope for further investment in the collection, transportation, processing/recycling, and storage of waste materials. A lack of waste infrastructure results in nearly 90% of all waste being unrecycled and stored in landfills and open dumps (Department of Environmental Affairs, 2018). The Johannesburg metropolitan area contains four engineered and regulated landfills. Two are scheduled to reach their designed capacity by 2021, while the other two have remaining design lives of less than ten years. In poorer surrounding townships, where data are harder to collect, estimates show that more than half of the waste produced remains uncollected and that 95% of whatever is collected is placed into open and unregulated dumps (Ayeleru et al., 2018). These dumps are major contributors to environmental and health-related matters. These data illustrate a bleak but realistic image of the current state of waste management in South Africa’s largest urban ecosystem. The remainder of this article explores challenges that arise within current management practices and an innovative suggestion on how they can be addressed and potentially solved. Materials Recovery and the Involvement of the Informal Sector Currently, the informal sector, through the work of waste pickers, collects nearly 80% to 90% of the waste generated in South Africa’s urban municipalities. Informal waste pickers are self-employed individuals who scavenge from domestic and commercial sites, waste dumps, and roadsides for recoverable and recyclable waste materials (plastics, glass, metals, and paper products) to sell at private buyback facilities (Greben & Oelofse, 2009). The government does not pay these pickers for their work, even though they deliver most waste-related services to the community. The remaining collection services in these urban townships are performed by a few charitable organizations, which collect only a select amount of presorted waste deposited at designated pick-up points. Waste pickers