waste – scape
mumbai / curitiba: solid waste management and recycling opportunities, the urban challenge
The management of the solid waste and the subsequent recycling policies are highly relevant topics regarding the most basic concerns about environmental protection and public health in cities.
In developing countries, the continuous rural exodus towards urban areas is exhausting the carrying capacity of cities that were planned and designed for a much more contained growth. The inability of these cities and their structures of governance to handle this massive arrival imply the overcrowding of people living in unsanitary conditions, and lacking access to the most basic facilities.
In this sense, the absence of a basic network of waste management and recycling contributes to the severe pollution of soil, water, and air, and causes illnesses and death to the population, and the as well irreversible damage to the already fragile urban ecosystem.
This research works together with the explorations for the design studio ‘Mumbai, the margins’ in the fall 07, and aim to reflect on the implications of solid waste management for the health of the urban ecosystem and the promotion of urban biodiversity.
The research outlines the solid waste management networks in the city of Mumbai, the current recycling initiatives and the future challenges trying to involve both ‘formal and informal’ population in the process.
The main focus will stay in the most fragile points in the network, the slum areas evenly spread all over the city. This feature, far from being a problem, should be seen in its potential to drastically improve the environment of the city if different initiatives were worked out at different levels.
As the pledge of a possible better future the research explores the case of Curitiba. The waste collection programs and recycling initiatives implemented in the 80’s and 90’s are a successful model serving as inspiration to other cities throughout the world.
Addressing the main differences between cities, their scales and structures of governance, the paper builds on the promise that some of the strategies implemented and doing well in Curitiba could be reinterpreted in Mumbai in the future to come.
In addition the following lines should serve to address the need for planning and design strategies to offer urgent and durable solutions, and to foster the interactive citizens’ participation.
