Title: FORUM: Waste management is a people game

Authors: Manfred Fehr

Addresses: Institute of Geography, Federal University at Uberlandia, 38400 902 Uberlandia, MG, Brazil

Abstract: The international waste management community is well aware of the necessity, with all its reasons, to divert urban waste from landfills. It so happens that the rest of the population does not share or have access to our knowledge, and consequently exhibits patterns of behaviour with respect to its waste that diverge from our expectations. This short forum suggests that this divergence may be managed by transferring the prime part of our efforts from managing waste to managing people. This means to recognise that administrative decisions need to precede technological choices, and that behaviour change does not occur spontaneously.

Keywords: waste management; people management; reverse logistics; municipal landfills; technological choices; behavioural change.

DOI: 10.1504/IJGENVI.2010.037286

International Journal of Global Environmental Issues, 2010 Vol.10 No.3/4, pp.402 - 403

Published online: 01 Dec 2010 *

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