Jérémie Cavé: The Controversial Management of an ‘Impure’ Public Nuisance: The Political Economy of Rubbish

Drawing on empirical research conducted in two ordinary cities in emerging economies – Vitória in Brazil and Coimbatore in India – we explain why municipal waste management in the Global South cannot exclude so-called ‘informal’ actors, lest it end in failure. This observation is now widely accepted, though the reasons behind it have not yet been fully explained.

We begin with an empirical observation of conflicts over ownership that arise when municipal schemes for separate waste collection are introduced, and which transcend the dichotomy between large private operators and small-scale waste pickers. These clashes lead us to pose the following central question: to whom does waste belong—res derelictae, objects defined precisely by their abandonment?

This is where our research makes its contribution: by combining economic theory with an urban planning approach, we demonstrate that the urban waste stream constitutes an impure public good (or ‘public bad’): a rival good, but one that cannot be excluded. This characteristic stems as much from disruptions in the waste collection service as from the market value of a growing number of materials – provided they are captured at source.

Finally, looking at the issue from a broader perspective, we argue that the local trade in dry waste is directly influenced by the prices of virgin or secondary raw materials (where such markets exist). This dominance of the global economy over a local urban service allows us to identify emerging strategies of urban mining, which raise the question of the legitimacy of appropriation with renewed urgency.