Community-Based Waste Management: Perspectives from Sub-Saharan Africa reframes how waste is understood and governed in contexts of uneven infrastructure, limited state capacity, and deep socio-economic inequality. Bringing together contributions from across the region, the book argues that community-based waste management (CBWM) is not simply a participatory add-on to formal systems, but a structurally necessary mode of service provision that emerges where municipal services are partial, exclusionary, or absent. Rather than presenting community engagement as inherently positive, the volume critically examines the diverse forms CBWM takes in practice, from household-level coping strategies and informal service provision to organized collective action and hybrid governance arrangements. It foregrounds the everyday labor through which waste is managed, with particular attention to informal workers, community organizations, and residents who sustain waste systems under constrained conditions. The book makes a conceptual contribution by positioning CBWM as a site of theory-building, drawing on insights from discard studies to interrogate how waste, value, and responsibility are produced and distributed. Across the chapters, contributors explore how CBWM can both reproduce and challenge existing inequalities, raising important questions about recognition, resourcing, and the role of the state. Bridging empirical depth with theoretical innovation, this volume will be of interest to scholars and practitioners working on waste governance, urban and rural service delivery, and environmental justice, particularly in African and other Global South contexts.

Dr. Marc Kalina is a Senior Lecturer in the SARChI Chair in Waste and Society at the University of the Western Cape. A sociologist and human geographer, his research focuses on waste management, informality, and social justice, particularly service delivery, constructions of “waste,” and the lives and livelihoods of waste pickers. His work examines how waste reflects inequality and transformation, and he combines policy-oriented and participatory research to promote inclusive waste governance, contributing to municipal strategy, EPR implementation, and circular economy dialogues. He has a PhD in Development Studies from the University of KwaZulu-Natal, and previously lectured at ETH Zurich, the University of KwaZulu-Natal, and the Durban University of Technology.

Professor Catherina Schenck holds the DSTI/NRF/CSIR Chair in Waste and Society at the University of the Western Cape, South Africa. Her research focuses on informality in the waste sector across the Global South, with particular emphasis on waste management in low-income and informal communities, environmental justice, and structural inequalities embedded in waste governance systems. She investigates the waste value chain as a site of economic opportunity, examining how income-generating possibilities can be created for marginalized waste workers. Her work is grounded in community-based and participatory methodologies and spans urban, peri-urban, and rural contexts across South Africa and sub-Saharan Africa. Professor Schenck has published widely in peer-reviewed journals, and her research informs both policy development and practice in inclusive urban waste governance.