Solid waste management in Cambodia

Solid waste management consists of two sectors: the formal operation and the informal scavenging activities. Because scavenging contributes to solid waste management economically and environmentally and also serves as an occupation for some of the most impoverished in the city, recently it has become the focus of scholarly deliberation. A notion of integrating this informal sector of SWM into the formal one is proposed by different scholars. Though they appear to differ in terms of approaches and arguments, their proposed policies are place-based. This paper examines the situations of solid waste management, both the formal and the informal, in Phnom Penh city, and discusses the feasibility of integrating the informal scavenging into the formal management of solid waste. It raises questions about the possible unintended consequences when informal scavenging is integrated through such place-based approach.