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Knowledge Technology and Society
Linking technological change in health, agriculture and environment to poverty reduction and social justice.

STEPS Centre Water Seminar, Dr Mansoor Ali

  • Dates: 12 March 2010
  • Time: 13.00 - 14.30
  • Location: IDS room 221

Speaker: Dr Mansoor Ali, Practical Action

Are there any secret millionaires in waste? The framings of real waste systems in Karachi and Dhaka

Waste systems of recycling and collection in many developing countries is a relevant context to discuss and debate the application of STEPS concept in practice, as this topic fully cuts across environmental sustainability, livelihoods, poverty and technologies. Everyday more than 10 million waste pickers earn their living from waste separation; more than 20 million poor people work in waste recycling and collection systems and a substantial amount of aid and charitable money is used to ‘modernise or globalised’ this sector. However, when it comes to practice, the real actors, systems and their analysis is frequently ignored and a technocratic versus philanthropists divide quickly emerge. Some research has been completed on this subject, papers published and toolkits developed – but the practical application, financing mechanisms and government policies are still far from recognising this sector. Mansoor Ali has worked extensively on this subject and will speak about the potential opportunities and actual tension in waste systems. He will be concluding the talk by suggesting how concepts like STEPS proposes can be extremely useful in practice. 

Modernisation and globalisation of waste systems and their divide with the real systems

While the contribution of these so called informal systems is evident, we still do not understand fully why they are still not considered as modern and global. Who sets the narrative and why? Waste reduction is a global agenda and an important part of modern approaches to achieve sustainable development. Waste systems in Karachi and Dhaka are doing this for many years? But they are still considered backward. Waste systems are well connected to the global economies, through the imports and exports of scrap materials. Then why we need institutional reforms to make this sector ‘internationally recognized and globally connected’? What is real and what is sustainable? Do we know? Who is setting the agenda and why? The second part, using examples will raise the above questions.

All welcome. For further information please contact Harriet le Bris: h.lebris@ids.ac.uk