CHAPTER 6 DISCUSSIONS AND CONCLUSIONS
6.4 Prospects for Source Separation Collection Services
148 The labour sector seems to have entered the cycle of absencing since it refuses to allow the MM to find solutions to the refuse collection service crisis if it does not favour its members.
According to Scharmer (2009a) organisations that engage in silencing other views and blaming others for all the problems in the system enter into the state of absencing where the whole becomes a resource to be subject to unlimited exploitation, instead of being used to create solutions that benefit the entire system.
6.3.3 Recommendations on the Extension of Refuse Collection Services
The leadership of the WMU would need to firstly establish awareness of the implications of Waste Act amongst the political and administrative leadership of the MM before beginning inclusive processes with all stakeholders within the Msunduzi waste system to develop local norms and standards for refuse collection services which are aligned to the national standards.
The leadership of the WMU should utilise the IWMP process to develop a realistic ten year plan to extend refuse collection services throughout the MM. The plan should identify the refuse collection service delivery models that will be used to extend service delivery to the different settlement types and the possible costs associated with such a plan. The plan should have a spatial basis with each ward within the MM having a refuse collection service
improvement plan which should indicate the extent to which existing collection services meet the local norms and standards for refuse collection services, identify illegal dumping hotspots within the ward, identify unserviced households and households that are indigent and should therefore be receiving free basic refuse collection services. The plan should also undertake an audit of refuse collection services to commercial business clients within each ward and provide plans to improve existing services for all customers.
The MM should enter into a dialogue process with the labour sector in order to develop collective agreements on the issues that pull them apart in the delivery of refuse collection services. Such a process could seek to move labour from an absencing cycle into a more collaborative approach that could increase the co-operation between the parties.
149 6.4.1 Discussion on Source Separation Collection Services
The possibility of extending source separation collection services to all existing customers of the MM is only supported by a single manager within the WMU and the recyclers currently undertaking the pilot project. The optimism of the recyclers is understandable given the lucrative nature of the new business opportunity that they have become part of. The optimism displayed by the manager of the WMU appears to be unfounded on a number of important grounds. Firstly the MM has not taken a policy decision on the provision of source separation services to its customers, the pilot project may serve to inform the policy making process but the political structures of the MM will need to support policy that provides source separation collection services. Given the lack of tacit knowledge on the new waste
management policy amongst the political leadership of the MM, the process is unlikely to occur in the short term and is likely to be characterised by delays and policy contestations when it is eventually undertaken. The trade union sector also has serious problems with source separation services being provided by the private sector since it believes that the MM is privatising a core function and very little appears to have been done to address these issues with labour. Critically the MM must procure the services of all external service providers in terms of their supply chain management policies; and it will therefore be illegal for the WMU to merely extend the scope of the project to cover the entire city using the current service providers.
Managers from the WMU and the LSU have very different views on the prospects of source separation services within the MM, these divisions can be largely attributed to the lack of an integrated waste management institution within the MM. The separation of the waste management functions into two separate institutions within the MM, viz. the WMU dealing with cleansing and refuse collection services and the LSU dealing with waste disposal issues provides fertile breeding ground for uncoordinated, overlapping and unsystemic solutions to be developed to the waste management challenges facing the MM. Source separation is likely to be the centre of division and disintegration given that the LSU believes that source separation and recycling should be done at the landfill site through a material recovery facility following the successes at the Marianhill landfill site (Purchase, 2008) whilst the WMU believes that source separation should be undertaken during refuse collection services.
150 The approach used by the WMU to implement a pilot project into source separation is very useful given the range of complex issues involved in recycling. These include the volatility in recycled material and virgin material markets, high transport costs, significant barriers at the household level to source separation and the lack of state support during cyclical declines in the recycling commodity market. Given this level of complexity and the lack of a
regulatory environment to support recycled materials the pilot project could provide valuable lessons that need to be learned in order to develop viable recycling practices. . It will be important to have opportunities for all the stakeholders to reflect on the pilot project so as to understand all the issues that affect the Msunduzi waste management recycling system.
Training shop stewards on recycling issues will not help to resolve the fundamental problems that labour has with the use of external service providers within the WMU, it seems as if management of the WMU defers labour issues through quick fixes instead of pursuing a more long term solution with labour.
It seems that the WMU has not properly defined the scope and duration of the pilot project, has not anticipated the impacts likely to be created by the pilot project and has not followed reasonable norms that can be expected from partners in a pilot project. The private recyclers predictably want to move from a pilot to a city wide programme and are frustrated by the delays in the process. The WMU is caught with a labour problem on the one hand and on the other hand the WMU does not have a strategy and policy on source separation services. To complicate matters further, the WMU is likely to come under pressure from other recyclers and other interested parties on the rationale for providing a recycling opportunity to only a single recycler within the MM.
The divergent views amongst the technical experts on the optimal approach for source separation services highlight the learning challenges facing societies dealing with rapid changes in complex systems. There are no past projects and experiences that the technical experts have worked on in this field that can be used to reflect upon in order to provide possible solutions, the challenge requires presencing and prototyping based solutions.
151 6.4.2 Conclusions on Source Separation Collection Services
Given the range of factors that affect the provision of source separation collection services within the MM, from labour resistance through to the lack of policy, the inability of the WMU leadership to work in partnerships, the divisions between the WMU and the LSU on responsibility for recycling and the limitations imposed by the procurement regulations that apply to local government, it is unlikely that the MM will succeed in extending source
separation collection services to all existing refuse collection customers within the MM in the next two years.
Given the dynamic, social and emerging complexity involved in recycling issues that have been identified through the current research process and the literature reviewed (Palm, 2006, WRAP, 2008a & 2008b and Kollikkathara et al, 2009,) and the lack of third and fourth layer attention to recycling, as defined by Scharmer (2009a), from most of the stakeholders within the Msunduzi waste management system, it is likely that recycling issues will destruct within an absencing cycle.
The inability of the senior management of the WMU to work in partnerships with private recyclers during the pilot project suggests that the leadership of WMU does not value input from outsiders and prefers working within its own organisational boundaries. This is likely to lead to solutions being developed that are unsystemic since other players within the Msunduzi waste management system have not been meaningfully engaged by the WMU and the solutions implemented are only being informed and driven by the perspectives of the leadership of the WMU whilst other players are isolated. Cloete et al (2000) identified the support of clients and coalitions affected by a policy as being one of the five key variables that lead to policy implementation success, given the attitude of the WMU to recycling clients and coalitions, the implementation of source separation collection services is unlikely be successfully implemented.
6.4.3 Recommendations for Source Separation Collection Services
The MM should consider developing an integrated waste management institution to deliver integrated waste management services rather than the fragmented institutional arrangements that currently prevail. The proposed waste management unit should be responsible for all
152 waste management services from waste avoidance and minimisation to cleansing, collection, storage, disposal and treatment of solid waste.
The WMU should evaluate the current pilot project in order to understand the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and risks associated with source separation collection services within the MM. This study should be complemented by undertaking a review of effective source separation collection projects and the issues involved in effectively operating
material recovery facilities within South Africa and other parts of the world.Projects currently occurring within the eThekwini Municipality also offer good case study material. The results and conclusions of such studies should be used to inform the development of norms and standards for recycling services within the Msunduzi waste management system.