Putting Peru's waste policies into practice - an analysis of implementation, constraints and delays

Abstract

In Peru, since 2000 a group of laws and institutions have been created to regulate, manage and monitor the municipal solid waste (MSW) management system. These measures suppose political will to reach an integrated and sustainable (solid) waste management (ISWM) system. But, increased per capita waste generation, low recycling rates, basic or inexistent technologies to treat waste and other materials ending up in landfill sites; prove to be an ineffective implementation of the current legal framework.

By analysing the current context extensively and focusing on interviews with a wide range of principal stakeholders this thesis claims that the slow progress in the application of waste reduction and recycling policies is a combination of a lack of political disposition, a lack of environmental awareness; and different priorities, behaviours and interests among the stakeholders involve in MSW.

This thesis seeks to monitor the advances in the enactment of waste reduction and recycling policies by providing reliable information about limitation aspects of the current management of MSW, with a focus on how the different sectors interact and affect MSW structures.