15. According to the World Bank's World Development Report, 1991, public spending in developing countries is relatively high for their level of development and provides very low returns. Total government expenditure is roughly 20 percent of GNP in low-income countries and 30 percent of GNP in middle-income countries. This report asserts a "need for smaller, more efficient public sectors and a more dynamic private sector." Furthermore, it states that private sector participation "is not to be undertaken as end in itself, but as a means to an end: to use resources more efficiently" (64).

16. Within local governments of developing countries, expenditure for municipal solid waste service is usually from 20 percent to 50 percent of total municipal expenditure. Even at such a high level of expenditure, the level of solid waste service is low, and only 50 percent to 70 percent of the solid waste is collected. In response to this high level of expenditure and low level of service, the main argument raised for private sector participation is that the private sector might be more efficient than the public sector in providing services. Private sector efficiency is said to derive from management flexibility, freedom of action, greater financial discipline, and accountability to market forces (12). Presumably, in a competitive environment, private firms must perform efficiently to make a profit and to maintain their position in the market place. Optimum efficiency does not occur when there are no opposing competitive forces. It doesn't occur when there is a public monopoly or a private monopoly. Even when there are many private companies, efficiency will not be optimized if they are in collusion over prices or work practices.

17. This argument certainly holds in countries where the competitive environment is well developed. In the United States, a) more than 10,000 private firms are engaged in municipal solid waste service, and b) more than 80 percent of this type of waste is collected by private firms (43). Of American publicly owned solid waste facilities, 7 percent of the landfills and 73 percent of the resource recovery facilities are operated by private contractors (52). These numbers indicate a highly competitive environment which is close to the reality. However, in many developing countries, the number of firms participating in service delivery may not be a true indicator of competition. Complexities in the qualification, registration, and procurement process of some countries (i.e., Indonesia and Malaysia) has lead to indigenous private companies registering and bidding under different company names, even though ownership and staffing were essentially the same.

18. Conditions leading to efficiency captured by the private sector in the United States, Canada, and Great Britain include smaller, younger crews; lower absenteeism, wages, and benefit costs; more flexible scheduling; efficient vehicle routing; better designed vehicles; managerial incentives; faster vehicle repairs; vehicle standardization; and competition (20, 32, 39, 43, 56, 58). In such high income countries, optimization of labor productivity has priority because labor costs are high relative to equipment costs; the converse is true for low income countries.

19. These same conditions of efficiency sometimes are reported by developing countries that have involved the private sector in municipal solid waste services. In Bogota (Colombia) the average age of the private sector work force is about twenty-five years old, while the average age of the government work force is about forty years old. In this case, the younger work force is considered more productive because it is stronger and also more cooperative with new management requirements (11).

20. In Lagos (Nigeria) the average age of the private sector's work force also is about twenty five years old, while the government work force is about forty-five years old. In Lagos the younger workers, however, are considered to be less motivated to work, while the older workers are considered to be more conscientious and reliable. This reason is that the younger workers are a) better educated than the older workers and b) view their job in sanitation as temporary employment, whereas the older workers view it as a life-long career (11).

21. Among developing countries, there are as many dissimilarities as similarities. Each city is unique. For example, substantially lower wage and benefit costs have been reported for private sector collection workers in Seoul (Korea) and Bogota—cities where a portion of the municipal solid waste collection service is conducted by private contractors. Seoul reports that government collection workers earn 50 percent more than private sector collection workers (11, 29). On the other hand, in Lagos, government workers are paid substantially less than private sector workers (11).

22. In Bogota, the private sector has a new standardized fleet, while the city is operating with an old and highly diversified fleet—factors that significantly complicate vehicle productivity. On the other hand, in Lagos, the government fleet is relatively new, standardized, and appropriately designed, while the private sector fleet is old and inappropriately designed. Lagos is somewhat unique among Nigerian cities because of equipment financing provided by the World Bank.

Nevertheless, even in those Nigerian cities wherein the World Bank has not financed collection equipment, the fleet owned by the government is appreciably better than those owned by the private sector.

23. Restrictive labor practices, such as those prevalent in seaports and on railways, are not a major issue in the solid waste sector (7, 24). Tenured government workers, however, have traditional patterns of behavior that may limit their productivity and that government may find difficult to curtail. These patterns include several breaks for meals and snacks, performing special service at households for tips, and sorting through the refuse for recyclables.

24. For example, Bangkok (Thailand), Bogota, Lagos, and Mexico City (Mexico), have reported a traditional practice of government refuse collection workers sorting out recyclable materials from the solid waste while working within their assigned collection areas. Of the time available in the collection zone, the time taken for sorting activity has been observed as 10 percent in Mexico City, to 30 percent in Bogota, and 40 percent in Bangkok ( I 1).

25. In metropolitan Manila (the Philippines), government workers have devised a creative solution to their desire to recycle. In this case, many collection trucks transport nongovernment, informal sector workers who perform the sorting, while government workers perform refuse collection; income is shared equitably among all (11).

26. Not only government workers are prone to spend their time sorting out recyclable materials. In Lagos, private workers also spend a significant portion of their work day in recycling. The only difference between government workers and private workers is that private workers are not allowed to use recycling as an excuse for not completing their daily routes. Overtime is regularly authorized to private workers for the extra time they require to finish routes; conversely, overtime is the exception for government workers, not the rule (11).

27. In dealing with inefficiencies in government, the first response should be to determine if they can be corrected within the purview of public service. In other words, to build on what exists and is working and to fix only what is not working. If the government does not have the political will to make necessary changes to improve efficiency or if workers will not accept change, one may create a competitive environment by contracting out a portion of the public service. Introducing some private sector service will produce the desired result only if a) monitoring is carried out of public versus private service delivery, and b) feedback is provided to ongoing negotiations between management and labor on increasing efficiency.

28. Involvement of the private sector in municipal solid waste service is not the only way of introducing competition as a means of stimulating greater efficiency. Since 1985, Indonesia promotes efficiency with local government in this area by sponsoring an annual city cleanliness competition—the ADIPURA Awards. This competition stimulates political commitment to placing a priority on municipal solid waste services.