Sustainability Transitions in the Municipal Solid Waste Management Systems of Bolivian Cities: Evidence from La Paz and Santa Cruz de la Sierra

Abstract

Municipal solid waste management (MWSM) systems have been evolving across most of the developing world. However, despite decades of refinement, they are still underperforming in many cities, leading to negative sustainability impacts in rapidly urbanizing cities of the global South. Despite similarities in the observed transitions between developed and developing countries, there are important differences in their characteristics and underlying drivers. This study aims to unravel the sustainability transitions of the MSWM systems in the two major cities of Bolivia, La Paz and Santa Cruz de la Sierra, illustrating the role of various actors, and specifically local governments. This is achieved through the analysis of secondary data and expert interviews with stakeholders involved in different aspects of the MSWM system at the national and local level. We identify three partially overlapping sustainability transitions in the two cities, namely “Collection and centralized disposal”, “Environmentally controlled disposal”, and “Integrated solid waste management”. However, timelines, speed and elements of these transitions are somewhat different between cities, largely due to their inherent characteristics, institutions and stakeholder dynamics. Many technological, socioeconomic, and institutional factors converge to facilitate and hinder these transitions, including interactions of government and private sector actors, and the country’s broader political context.

Diagnosing the Causes of Failing Waste Collection in Belize, Bolivia, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Panama, and Paraguay Using Dynamic Modeling

“…This suggests that Bolivia is not able to absorb high influxes of new urban inhabitants and that this has an effect on the target variable. This corroborates with the data on urban slums given in Appendix D and also with research findings on the intensity of urban migration in Bolivia, which is the highest in Latin America [53]. The sensitivity analysis also suggests that the growth of the urban population only has an effect on SWM performance in countries with a limited capacity to absorb this growth, like in the case of Bolivia.…”

“…For Belize, Bolivia, and Panama, GQ seems to decline, which is also illustrated by the normalized results (Appendix D, row GQGR combined N). Normalizations suggest that this decline mainly comes from a basic weakness in governance quality, often in combination with political instability, as also mentioned in the literature [53]. The model suggests that in these countries, only at higher government revenues may a positive change be expected.…”

“…Additional research into the development of SWM revenues over the years may show whether this factor is indeed limiting progress. It may also reveal whether the absorptive capacity of Bolivia's cities is indeed part of the bottleneck, as reported by [53].…”

“…Although the government is apparently able to generate good revenues, governance quality and public participation are at a low and stagnant level, and this may prevent a faster increase in waste collection coverage. The work of [53] on Bolivia describes the role of social unrest on the quality of government and vice versa, as well as its negative impact on improving solid waste management in general.…”

Factors influencing household-level positive and negative solid waste management practices in rapidly urbanizing cities: insights from Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia

“…To achieve this, we combine the TPB, exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and SEM, focusing on Santa Cruz de la Sierra, which is the largest city of Bolivia. The city is characterized by rapid/unplanned growth that has influenced negative SWM behaviors and a lack of resources/capacity that has precluded the wide implementation of sustainable SWM practices in large parts of the city (Lozano Lazo and Gasparatos 2019).…”