A Circular Model of Residential Composting in Mexico City

The urban solid waste (USW) in Mexico City is managed at the municipal level. This situation means several challenges: the 3-year municipal administration period clearly affects the continuity of their USW management plans and programmes, adding to the space shortage problem to properly landfill them. Even further, the technologically insufficient operation of landfills represented 16% of greenhouse gas emissions in 2016. Organic waste represented between 45% and 55% of the total USW. Therefore, grassroots initiatives were the focus of this research because some of them proved to reduce USW at the household level, because activities to turn the organic waste into compost by community members are relevant. This fits into the purposes of the circular economy and zero waste landfill. Local composting has an important potential to improve USW management: the goal of this paper was to identify the conditions necessary for those projects to be successful. Hence, our research question is as follows: Which are the conditions needed to facilitate the community-based compost production? To answer it, international cases were analysed to learn from the existing best practices. Two countries were used as reference: the United Kingdom and the Netherlands. A proper literature review was carried out to build the analytical framework to assess one specific case study in Mexico City: the composting plant Club de Golf Bellavista (CGB). Surveys and interviews were carried out in order to compile empirical data and information for further analysis. Among the most relevant findings, “social participation” came across as a relevant factor in this type of grassroots initiatives, particularly at the source generation of the USW. This was consistently mentioned through surveys responded by CGB stakeholders. Neighbours also had the opportunity to suggest different mechanisms that could convince other neighbours to engage in the separation phase of USW.