3.4 Storage, Collection and Transportation

Waste services delivery, including the storage, collection and transportation of waste, is the main point of interface between the public and waste service providers. The how and what of waste services delivery also impacts directly on all stages of the waste hierarchy. The Waste Act requires municipalities to ensure access to and sustainability of waste services, to provide waste services at affordable prices, and to keep separate financial statements for waste services provided, amongst other. Key considerations for the development of an overall strategy for waste services delivery include varying notions for universal provision of waste services, the negative impact of current tariff policies on waste minimization, the limited use of external mechanisms of service provision and its low job creation impact and the impact of regionalisation of waste management services.

• Setting norms and standards for the planning and provision of waste management services. The Waste Act obliges DEA to set norms and standards for waste management services, and DEA has already initiated the process to prepare these. The Waste Act also provides for provincial norms and standards to be set in relation to waste management services, although differing provincial standards will raise issues in terms of the administrative capacity to monitor and enforce them.
• Municipalities may further set waste services standards for the separation, compacting and storage of solid waste, the management and directing of solid waste, and in respect of the control of litter. The Waste Act obliges waste service standards to be aligned to provincial and national norms and standards and further allows for the regionalisation of waste management services.   
• Targets for waste services delivery need to be set in municipal and provincial integrated waste management plans, with the objective of ensuring universal coverage of waste services within a realistic timeframe. While a general consensus on the objective of universal access to services exists, the understandings of ‘universal access’ and specifically the application of this term in urban vs rural contexts vary greatly. Within the NWMS, waste services delivery will gain its impetus from a refined definition of ‘service’/ ‘universal access’/ ‘universal provision’ of waste services, particularly as this has direct implications for the sequenced introduction of different targets and the development of guidelines for this purpose. In setting waste service delivery targets, government will take cognisance of the right of access to basic services and will ensure appropriate differentiation of targets.
• Waste service tariffs need to be reviewed, and guidelines issued in this regard. Current tariff policies create no incentive for waste minimization, and under-pricing of waste services over the years has led to an average 15% operating deficit in municipalities. Lessons should be learnt from the use of the current property-based and service-based tariff structures in the assessment of volumetric charging as a viable tariff charging policy which has the potential to stimulate waste minimisation. 
• Full cost accounting, which includes taking account of the full capital replacement, operating and environmental costs of delivering services is further considered to be the best mechanism to ensure proper pricing of waste services. A fundamental step here will be to understand the true costs of the waste service. The NWMS will provide guidance to municipalities to address the need for full cost accounting and will steer away from artificially influencing pricing to support recycling objectives only.
• Labour intensive and community based mechanisms for waste service delivery should be promoted. Despite the potential for external mechanisms for waste services delivery to contribute to job creation; only 13% of authorised municipalities have outsourced or commercialised service provision activities in 2007. The use of community-based service delivery mechanisms has also been limited. In evaluating models for waste services delivery, a key criterion should be job creation potential. Labour intensive approaches are currently being piloted by national government and initial estimates suggest a potential to create over 3 000 permanent, non-public sector jobs in waste collection. The NWMS will examine how best employment creation pilot projects such as these can be brought to scale. Models for waste services delivery will be underpinned by industrial policy objectives of SMME development, employment creation and added value for beneficiaries. 
• Provisions for the registration of transporters of waste with the relevant municipality need to be elaborated, with appropriate thresholds set for transporters, so that the regulatory burden on government and industry is minimised.
•  The regionalisation of waste services needs to be carefully evaluated. While regionalisation holds the prospect of reducing unit overhead costs (e.g. through shared disposal facilities, and reduced management costs), this is however offset by the significant rise in transport costs associated with regional disposal. The potential for reduced local accountability for service delivery due to the greater scale at which decisions are taken is also a concern. Given the cost implications of increased transport distances associated with regional disposal, the NWMS will need to give careful consideration to the costs and benefits of regionalisation.

Each of the measures will be further elaborated upon in the following chapter.