The development of partnerships as a mechanism for providing the services and facilities required for Integrated Waste Management should be considered. The categories of partnerships that should be considered include:

• Public-public partnerships: this can be a partnership (between a District municipality and local municipalities) for collaborating on waste services such as on the establishment of a regional waste disposal facility or in instances where local municipalities have limited capacity to provide the delivery of waste services,
• Public-private partnerships (PPP): for collaborating on financial assistance for waste services, establishment of waste management facilities, establishment of separation at source and other waste management initiatives i.e. development and management of waste disposal facilities, establishment and management of MRFs, transfer stations, and recycling facilities.
• NGO/Community based organisations (CBO's): partnership with the municipality in order that they may participate or carryout awareness and education campaigns and programs.

The following provides a snapshot of how these partnerships could work, as well as indicates the various aspects that a municipality could partner on with the identified stakeholders.

• Public-private-partnerships: could be formed by calling for proposals from interested parties to indicate how they are going to deliver a certain aspect to waste management. Once the tender has been concluded and the municipality should sign a memorandum of understanding (MOU) in order that the conditions contained in the MOU should be met. The municipality could decide to play an oversight role while the service provider will be responsible for the delivery of the service. Some of the services could include carrying out recycling initiatives through Co-operatives (Co-ops), private company or through a community based waste collection method etc.
• Leases: in this type of a partnership a municipality would lease land to Co-ops or a private company to establish a buyback centre in order to carry out recycling;
• Privatisation: of a waste collection service i.e. the transportation aspect to the service / transfer of ownership whereby a driver-owner scheme could be in place, this entails the owner of a truck being the actual driver that provides the service on behalf of the municipality;
• Joint ventures: in a wide variety of areas such as in operating a waste disposal site, or in the construction of a waste disposal facility where a private company would be responsible for the project or certain aspects thereof.

Partnerships in the delivery of waste management services should be encouraged and municipalities should ensure that there are binding agreements in place to ensure that the services will be delivered. The formation of PPP's for the implementation of IWM plans should be investigated. PPP's for smaller local authorities could greatly reduce the cost of equipment and salaries and should be encouraged. Partnerships in waste collection can prove very beneficial for small local authorities and should be considered for public-public as well as for public-private partnerships.

Local government may develop by-laws, which augment National and Provincial regulatory requirements. These by-laws must aim to give effect to the right contained in section 24 of the Constitution by regulating waste management within the area of the municipality's jurisdiction; provide, in conjunction with any other applicable law, an effective legal and administrative framework, within which the Municipality can manage and regulate waste management activities; ensure that waste is avoided, or where it cannot be altogether avoided, minimised, re-used, recycled, recovered, and disposed of in an environmental sound manner; and promote and ensure an effective delivery of waste services. The by-laws must also be aimed at discouraging littering by prosecuting offenders amongst others.

Local government may also enforce these by-laws either through local or regional authorities through designated EMI's. To increase capacity to enforce municipal by-laws; municipalities can explore training Metro police/ local enforcement agencies on waste related matters in order that they too are equipped and are able to issue fines on waste management transgressions. Environmental Health Practitioners (EHP's) could also be trained on waste matters in order that they can administer the enforcement of waste by-laws.

Appropriate economic instruments should be evaluated and implemented.

A critical precondition for the successful implementation of IWMPs is access to sufficient funding to carry out the plan. Funding will be required for inter-alia: building capacity within the municipality; the development and implementation of by-laws; development and implementation of IWMP; development, operation and maintenance costs of waste management facilities; and the design and commissioning of new waste management facilities.

Different sources that a municipality could potentially obtain funding from could include Equitable Share Funding, grant allocation, revenue from rates and tariffs, revenue from fines. For once off projects, funding sources could include the Municipal Infrastructure Grant (MIG) funding for infrastructure related projects, donor funding to fund certain aspects to the delivery of waste services.

It must be noted that not all funding sources are sustainable, for example donor funding is sometimes only available for a limited period.

In order for municipalities to have sustainable sources of revenue, a full cost accounting of how much it realistically costs them to deliver waste management services should be developed. Once developed, municipalities will then be able to charge tariffs that are reflective of the cost of rendering waste management services and will generate accurate revenue for the waste services rendered. Municipalities will also be able to determine whether there is under-recovery of waste collection revenue from its customers or not.

Below are some examples of economic instruments that could be considered for funding the various aspects to waste management.

1. Funding mechanisms for recycling

   Recycling initiatives could be funded through public-private initiatives whereby the municipality could provide receptacles for separation at source by households and a recycling company could, at their cost, collect the recyclables.

   Another scenario could be that of Community based recyclers; wherein they could organize themselves and with the help of a municipality participate in recycling where they could be the ones employed in carrying the further sorting of recyclables in an buy back centre which could then be sold to recycling companies as a way of generating income to sustain the program.

   Further, the following funding models could be employed in order to ensure the financial sustainability of waste management initiatives:

   • Fiscal funding allocation
   • User charges e.g. volumetric charging
   • Revenue collection from penalties, fines or levies
   • Establish partnerships with industry wherein the industry may finance aspects of recycling i.e. fund the transport costs to carry out recycling (the NWMS has identified the Packaging industry as one of the industries that must develop an Industry Waste management plan which should stipulate how it will deal with packaging waste in order that it should not land up on waste disposal facilities)

2. Funding mechanisms for waste collection and transportation

   To facilitate the funding of waste collection and transportation, possible sources of funding for waste collection and transportation could include:

   • Payment for services rendered (full cost accounting will ensure that appropriate fees are charged) in order that waste management services are delivered sustainably, cross-subsidisation could be explored whereby poor communities could be subsidised by paying households in order that basic services are rendered to indigent households;
   • Local government budgetary allocations (from Equitable share funding allocation); and
   • Use of public-private partnerships.

3. Funding mechanisms for waste disposal

   The cost associated with general waste disposal will mainly be funded by user fees or as part of waste charges for local authority's general waste disposal sites. The introduction of waste disposal tariffs at all waste disposal facilities, reflecting the real cost of waste disposal, should be encouraged.

   Public-private partnerships may be established for the development and operation of waste facilities including regional waste disposal facilities. In this type of partnership a memorandum of understanding/agreement could be signed between a municipality and a private company wherein it will be agreed on whether the private company will make an upfront payment towards the establishment of the waste disposal facility and once in operation the private company will utilize the disposal facility and in turn instead of being charged disposal fees the municipality would deduct from the amounts already paid in advance.

   Mbombela Local Municipality is one such an example whereby this Municipality entered into a joint venture with a private company for the establishment of its waste disposal facility and the private company made an upfront payment to this municipality and every time the company uses the waste disposal facility deductions are made from the upfront payment that was used to establish the site until such a time that there amount has been used up.

A municipality must develop an implementation plan which details how the targets set in the goals will be attained as well as what resources will be required to attain the targets in the next five years. In this instance, the implementation plan has been developed in a manner that summarises the entire IWMP planning process in order to demonstrate how each of the steps fit into each other. For example:

This exercise should be performed for all the goals; and what is key to note is that these are according to the desired end state as well as the selected methods of achieving the goals. Once the IWMP has been approved, the implementation plan should be a living document that will be used to deliver day to day waste management services in order that targets set in the IWMP should be met.