Waste as a Resource – serie

Community-Based Waste Management: Perspectives from Sub-Saharan Africa reframes how waste is understood and governed in contexts of uneven infrastructure, limited state capacity, and deep socio-economic inequality. Bringing together contributions from across the region, the book argues that community-based waste management (CBWM) is not simply a participatory add-on to formal systems, but a structurally necessary mode of service provision that emerges where municipal services are partial, exclusionary, or absent. Rather than presenting community engagement as inherently positive, the volume critically examines the diverse forms CBWM takes in practice, from household-level coping strategies and informal service provision to organized collective action and hybrid governance arrangements. It foregrounds the everyday labor through which waste is managed, with particular attention to informal workers, community organizations, and residents who sustain waste systems under constrained conditions. The book makes a conceptual contribution by positioning CBWM as a site of theory-building, drawing on insights from discard studies to interrogate how waste, value, and responsibility are produced and distributed. Across the chapters, contributors explore how CBWM can both reproduce and challenge existing inequalities, raising important questions about recognition, resourcing, and the role of the state. Bridging empirical depth with theoretical innovation, this volume will be of interest to scholars and practitioners working on waste governance, urban and rural service delivery, and environmental justice, particularly in African and other Global South contexts.