Abstract
Mexico is faced with serious environmental and administrative challenges with respect to
solid waste (SW) management. Just as in other developing countries, the public sanitation
system lacks because of inadequate planning, as well as unsustainable SW management. The
country is experiencing an urbanization process in which approximately 70% of the population
are concentrated in its ten largest cities; the rest are spread throughout 200 000 towns in
Mexico’s 2 000 000 km2
. This has caused a change in the population’s consumption patterns,
which has resulted in a more heterogeneous composition of SW and an increase in its
generation rate. The current situation of the SW management systems in Mexico is analyzed,
and the environmental, technical, administrative, economic and social goals with which
Mexico’s public sanitation systems face, are discussed. The principal goal facing these public
sanitation systems is the development of adequate disposal of SW, since the municipalities find
themselves unable to administer sanitary landfills according to Mexican legislation because
they lack financial means and the technical and human infrastructure. SW collection in
Mexico depends heavily on personnel with no technical training and the separation of the
waste is carried out by an ever-increasing number of scavengers. The importance of including
these groups in the decision-making process in order to assure the success of SW management
programs is presented, along with the need to create interdisciplinary work groups that could
collaborate in driving forward the agenda.
# 2003 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.