Digitalization of Solid Waste Management

Abstract

Digital interventions in urban governance are frequently viewed in a binary light. They are either lauded as game changers or criticized as being completely vacuous projects. Studying the ongoing implementation of a project on digitalizing the solid waste management (SWM) system in Mangaluru, this paper presents a new way of looking at digital infrastructure that is not a zero-sum calculation. The paper makes three arguments: (i) digitalization brings in several new private players to urban governance, who end up complicating an already fragmented system, (ii) digital solutions adopted are neither suited to the labor-intensive working conditions of the SWM sector nor are they sufficiently deployed to bring effective change, and (iii) the idea of a one-stop online grievance redressal system as a game changer is misplaced since it does not improve the trust deficit among the residents. Through highlighting these issues, the paper presents the possibilities of understanding digital interventions as evolving aspects of cities, where new systems do not completely replace the old systems but create contradictions, revealing gaps for the local governments to improve on.

Keywords

• urban governance
• smart cities
• digitalization
• solid waste management
• urban service delivery