Situation– In Bolivia two thirds of the population live in poverty, 40 percent even in extreme poverty. The local government hardly manages with a tight budget to fulfill its obligations towards the inhabitants. For example, the public waste disposal only functions rudimentarily. In the bigger cities waste disposals mostly exist, but 90% of the households in rural areas do not benefit from a public waste disposal system. Therefore, 40% burn their waste in their yards, 29% simply throw it somewhere, 16% throw it into the rivers thus polluting the water and 7% bury it in their own garden. This increases the pollution of the environment in rural, mostly agricultural regions and causes increasingly health and hygiene problems.
Project – Since beginning of 2011 Swisscontact has been providing advice to rural communities to build up a comprehensive and sustainable waste management system. The communities include between 5’000 and 50’000 inhabitants each. The purpose of the project is to create an innovative model for waste management in rural communities with public-private partnerships. This reduces drastically the amounts of irregularly deposited waste and at the same time supports the professional treatment and economic use of recyclable materials. The cultural, economic and organizational aspects of each community are taken into consideration for the planning and implementing of waste management systems.
The project aims at creating jobs for the poor in the spheres of waste disposal, waste treatment and recycling in rural regions of Bolivia. The pollution of the environment shall be reduced thus improving the hygienic conditions in the households.
In total 20 rural communities with around 300’000 inhabitants benefit from the project, being able to live in a healthier environment thanks to the newly introduced waste management systems. Also 20 small start-up enterprises offering services like waste disposal and street cleaning benefit from the project. It is expected that these companies will create around 300 new jobs.
