How do current policies and governance structures in Nepal influence informal waste integration?

 Current policies and governance structures in Nepal significantly influence the integration of the informal waste sector, often leading to a lack of recognition and support despite their crucial role in waste management.

Here's how current policies and governance impact informal waste integration in Nepal:

• Lack of Legislative Recognition and Policy Gaps

  • Absence in Key Legislation: Despite their substantial contribution to recycling and diverting waste from landfills, informal waste pickers lack legislative recognition in Nepal's Solid Waste Management Act of 2011. This is in contrast to neighboring India, where waste pickers are formally defined in their SWM Act of 2016.
  • Overlooked Contributions: The economic, social, and environmental contributions of the informal sector, such as recovering materials worth an estimated USD 18 million annually in Kathmandu Valley and extending landfill lifespans, are largely unrecognized by responsible authorities.
  • Conflicting Policies: While the Solid Waste Management Act (2011) provides a framework for waste segregation and recycling, its implementation often falls short. The national urban development strategy (2017-2030) and national five-year plan (2019/20-2023/24) mention promoting and mandating 3R (reduce, reuse, recycle) and formalizing the urban informal sector with social protection schemes, but the SWM acts/rules do not acknowledge informal recycling or livelihood rights through urban waste.
  • Focus on Formalization and Taxation: The government's approach has often been to regulate informal operators for tax purposes, such as levying a 13% VAT on scrap materials, which has been counterproductive and seen as a bureaucratic hassle that cuts profit margins for dealers and informal waste workers. This "legalist" approach focuses on formalization and taxation without considering the heterogeneity of the informal waste sector, which can be counterproductive for the city's waste management.

• Governance Structures and Capacity Limitations

  • Weak Government Structure: The existing government structure struggles to provide waste services to the growing urban population and lacks the capacity to diversify waste management practices towards a circular economy.
  • Fragmented Responsibility and Coordination Gaps: Responsibility for urban services like waste management is fragmented among various formal and informal actors. There's a lack of coordination and cooperation between different government bodies, such as the Ministry of Urban Development (MoUD) and municipal authorities, leading to ambiguities and delays in infrastructure projects like landfill construction.
  • Decentralization Challenges: Despite constitutional provisions for decentralization and devolution of powers to local governments, municipalities like Kathmandu are still heavily reliant on central government plans and budgets for waste management infrastructure and planning. This dependency limits their ability to integrate local informal actors effectively.
  • Insufficient Municipal Capacity: Local governments often lack the necessary human resources, technical expertise, and financial resources to implement comprehensive waste management programs effectively. This creates a void that the informal sector fills.

• Government Attitudes and Relationships with the Informal Sector

  • Neglect and Indifference: The prevailing attitude of local authorities towards informal waste workers is often one of indifference, neglect, or avoidance, despite their visible presence and contributions. Their activities and contributions are often ignored, and positive attempts to integrate them are rare.
  • Uncertain Relationships: The relationship between municipal authorities and the informal sector is largely unclear and uncertain, with the two operating in parallel without collaborative interaction.
  • Threats from Modernization Plans: Government plans to achieve a "modernized waste management system" often involve handing over waste responsibility to transnational corporations, which poses a threat to the existence and livelihoods of private waste companies and the informal waste sector. These projects typically overlook the 'unplanned' informal actors and community-based organizations.

• Challenges to Integration due to Policies and Governance

  • Lack of Formal Employment Rights and Safety: Waste pickers often lack formal employment rights, access to healthcare, and basic safety measures, exposing them to health hazards and physical injuries. Policies often fail to address occupational health and safety specifically for informal waste workers.
  • Social Stigma: Waste work is associated with social stigma in Nepal, particularly for those from traditionally lower castes or migrant backgrounds, which is exacerbated by rapid urbanization and weak governance. This perception hinders recognition and integration efforts.
  • Limited Public-Private Partnerships for Informal Sector: While policies recommend partnerships with the private sector and NGOs, there's a lack of binding legal partnerships with existing private companies and informal actors. The focus has been on large-scale public-private partnerships with international entities, often neglecting local informal actors.
  • Lack of Organizational Support: Informal waste workers in Kathmandu largely remain unorganized and scattered, which limits their collective voice and ability to advocate for their integration into formal systems.

• Impact on Circular Economy

  • The informal sector already promotes a circular economy by recovering and recycling materials that would otherwise end up in landfills, thus reducing the carbon footprint and conserving resources. However, the current waste management system's failure to acknowledge them means that a significant responsibility that should fall under the remit of regional and national governments is effectively carried out by the informal sector without official support or integration.
  • The price volatility of recycled materials and the absence of regulatory capacity further challenge the promotion of a circular economy from the informal sector.
  • Policies promoting Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) are needed to attract investments and hold manufacturers accountable for their products' lifecycle.

In conclusion, current policies and governance structures in Nepal largely operate in parallel to the informal waste sector, often neglecting its existence and contributions, and imposing regulatory burdens without offering adequate support or clear pathways for formal integration. This impedes the informal sector's potential to fully contribute to a sustainable and circular economy in Nepal.