. Solid Waste Management and Recycling. New York, Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2004.

The project on which this book is based, results from the interest within the group of staff and junior researchers at the University of Amsterdam on how urban environmental management could be made more sustainable. Earlier studies in India and Peru had given us knowledge on how widespread small enterprises recycling waste materials for profit and people picking waste were in many cities in the South. It also led to a realisation of how important the contribution of such activities was to reducing waste flows, despite the fact that such activities occurred in semi-illegal contexts and received no recognition from governments or middle-class residents