Managing Solid waste in Informal Settlements: Exploring Makause

Unplanned high density settlements present constraints for conventional approaches to solid waste management. For an informal settlement such as Makause which is one of hundreds of informal settlements in the Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipality in Gauteng and will not be upgraded in the immediate term, the non-conventional alternative approaches to solid waste management which include community based service provision, municipality community partnerships and public private partnerships should be considered as a means to solving the problem in the short to medium term. Immediate interventions such as the strategic location of communal dumps in informal settlements are critical because at least the living conditions of the poor can be improved in the short term while they wait for a long term intervention.