The travel of global ideas of waste management. The case of Managua and its informal settlements

• Global ideas of waste management travel via international aid development agencies.
• This paper presents a case study on waste management projects in Managua.
• The ideas that travelled were waste transfer station and decentralized waste management.
• The ideas were decoupled and accommodated within existing waste management practices.
• The new ideas challenged the existing logic of a centralized waste management.

Informal settlements in the global South cities are often neglected by formal solid waste collection services. In the city of Managua, the municipality and international and local NGOs recently implemented several waste management projects to provide waste collection in informal settlements. These projects supported or created cooperatives or microenterprises of waste pickers collecting household solid waste in barrios inaccessible to modern waste trucks. The projects also created three waste transfer stations, on barrio fringes, where the collected waste could be disposed and transported by municipal truck to the municipal landfill. New institutionalism theory and the “travel metaphor” illuminate how the “waste transfer station” idea travelled to Managua from various international organizations. New urban infrastructure and waste management models introduced by donors were decoupled from existing waste management models and practices. Despite the organizational hypocrisy of the city administration, introducing this new model via pilot projects in three city districts challenges the logic of the existing centralized waste management system, which ignores the city's informal settlements. The introduced waste transfer stations and associated waste collection practices were translated, and sometimes contested, in some informal settlements through protests, occupations, and other defiance strategies enacted by municipal waste collectors, squatters, and residents.