AN ASSESSMENT OF URBAN ENVIRONMENTAL PROBLEMS IN ECUADOR
by
Douglas Southgate
Kenneth Frederick
John Strasma
Allen White
Lori Lach
John Kellenberg
Patricia Kelly
Delivery Order No. 7, 60 pages, June, 1995
For more information or copies of this publication, contact:
Douglas Southgate
Agricultural Economics
Ohio State University
Columbus, Ohio 43210-1099
Tel: (614) 292-2432
Fax: (614) 292-4749
Email: dsouthga@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu
Produced by:
Ellen A. Maurer
Communications Director
EPAT/MUCIA-Research & Training
University of Wisconsin-Madison
1003 WARF Office Building
610 Walnut Street
Madison, WI 53705 USA
Tel: (608) 263-4781
Fax: (608) 265-2993
email: eamaurer@facstaff.wisc.edu
* Some figures and/or tables included in the printed version of
this publication could not be included in this electronic
version. If you need copies of these figures or tables, please
contact the author.
REPORT INFORMATION
This report was prepared under contract DHR-5555 Q-00-1087-00 for
the Regional Housing and Urban Development Office (RHUDO) and the
Quito Mission of the U.S. Agency for International Development
(USAID-Quito) by the Midwest Universities Consortium for
International Activities (MUCIA), which is the prime contractor
for the research component of USAID's Environmental and Natural
Resources Policy and Training (EPAT) Project.
CONTENTS
ACRONYMS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
I.INTRODUCTION: POTABLE WATER SUPPLIES AND SEWAGE MANAGEMENT
1. Urbanization and Pollution in Latin America
2. The Environmental Challenge Facing Ecuador's Cities
3. USAID's Contribution to Improved Urban Management in Ecuador
4. International Interests
5. Outline of This Assessment
6. References
II. POTABLE WATER SUPPLIES AND SEWAGE MANAGEMENT
1. Water Institutions in Ecuador
2. Water Supply and Sanitation in Quito
3. Water Supply and Sanitation in Guayaquil
4. Water Supply and Sanitation in Machala
5. The Health Impacts of Inadequate Potable Water and Sewerage
Services
6. Policy Recommendations
7. References
III. AIR POLLUTION
1. Economic Development and Emissions Sources
2. Exposure to Air Pollution in Guayaquil and Quito
3. Air Pollution's Effects on Human Health
4. Economic Evaluation of the Health Impacts of Air Pollution
5. Strategies for Controlling Air Pollution
6. The Political Economy of Air Pollution Control in Ecuador
8. References
IV. INDUSTRIAL POLLUTION
1. Introduction
2. Health Impacts of Urban Industrial Pollution
3. Regulating Industrial Pollution
4. Beyond Regulation: Accelerating the Adoption of Less
Polluting
Technologies
5. Policy Options
6. References
IV. MUNICIPAL SOLID WASTE
1. Solid Waste Generation in Urban Ecuador
2. Health Impacts of Deficient Solid Waste Services
3. Models of Solid Waste Collection and Transport
4. Sanitary Landfills and Open-Air Dumps
5. Making Garbage Collection and Disposal More Efficient
6. Recycling's Contribution
7. Administrative and Financial Issues
8. Opportunities for External Development Agencies
9. References
LIST OF INTERVIEWEES
ACRONYMS
BEDE
Banco Ecuatoriano de Desarrollo
BOD
Biological oxygen demand
CAAM
Commision Asesora Ambiental de la Presidencia
CDC
Centers for Disease Control
COD
Chemical oxygen demand
DIGMER
Direccion General de la Marina Mercante
EMAAP-Q
Empresa Municipal de Agua Potable y Alcantarillado de Quito
EMA-G
Empresa Municipal de Alcantarillado de Guayaquil
EMAP-Q
Municipal de Agua Potable de Quito
EPAP-Guayas
Empresa Provincial de Agua Potable del Guayas
EMASEO
Empresa Municipal de Aseo
EP3
Environmental Pollution Prevention Project
EPAT
Environmental and Natural Resources Policy and Training
IDB
Inter-American Development Bank
IEOS
Instituto Ecuatoriano de Obras Sanitarias
INEC
Instituto Nacional de Estadisticas y Censos
INERHI
Instituto Ecuatoriano de Recursos Hidraulicos
LAC
Latin American and Caribbean Bureau of the U.S. Agency for
International
Development
LPG
Liquified petroleum gas
MINDUVI
Ministerio de Desarrollo Urbano y Vivienda
MRF
Materials recovery facility
MSP
Ministerio de Salud Publica
P2
Pollution prevention
PAHO
Pan-American Health Organization
PECIS
Programa de Evaluacion de la Contaminacion Industrial en el Sur
RHUDO/SA
Regional Housing and Urban Development Office for South America
of the
U.S. Agency for International Development
TSP
Total suspended particulates
USEPA
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
WHO
World Health Organization
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This assessment of urban and industrial environmental problems in
three Ecuadorian cities was funded by the Quito Mission of the
U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and the
Regional Housing and Urban Development Office for South America
(RHUDO-SA). The team that carried out the assessment included
Douglas Southgate from Ohio State University (group leader and
air pollution expert), Kenneth Frederick of Resources for the
Future (water resources expert), John Strasma from the University
of Wisconsin (solid waste management expert), Allen White of
Tellus Institute (industrial pollution expert), Lori Lach of
Tellus Institute (environmental health expert), and John
Kellenberg and Patricia Kelly (research assistants).
The team was recruited by the USAID-funded Environmental and
Natural Resources Policy and Training (EPAT) Project, for which
the Midwest Universities Consortium for International Activities
(MUCIA) is the prime contractor. EPAT-MUCIA's Nick Poulton and
his staff provided excellent administrative support for this
assessment, which could not have been carried out without the
cooperation of USAID project officers Kenneth Baum and Russell
Misheloff.
As is indicated in the list of interviewees that appears at the
end of this document, dozens of individuals provided invaluable
assistance to the EPAT-MUCIA team, furnishing information and
giving freely of their time. John Sanbrailo (USAID Mission
Director), the current and former directors of RHUDO-SA
(Christopher Milligan and William Yeager), and their colleagues
also deserve special thanks. Mr. Sanbrailo and Luis Carrera de
la Torre, of the Comision Asesora Ambiental de la Presidencia
(CAAM), made time in their busy schedules to chair a meeting on
24 March 1995 at which a preliminary draft of the assessment was
presented and discussed.
Of course, the opinions expressed in this document are not
necessarily shared by any of the aforementioned institutions and
the authors are responsible for all errors and omissions.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Douglas Southgate, the principal author of this report, is a
professor of agricultural economics and natural resources at Ohio
State University, where he directs the Latin American Studies
Program and the University Center for International Studies. He
received a Ph.D. in natural resource economics from the
University of Wisconsin and has consulted in ten Latin American
and Caribbean countries for various development agencies. He has
nearly five years of cumulative experience in Ecuador, including
a Fulbright fellowship (1987), a Joint Career Corps assignment
with USAID (1990 to 1993), and more than a dozen short-term
consultancies.
Kenneth Frederick, a senior fellow at Resources for the Future,
is an authority on policies influencing the use and management of
water resources. He has consulted for a large number of
development agencies and national governments in different parts
of the world. Immediately after receiving a Ph.D. in economics
from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in 1965, advised
USAID in Brazil for two years.
A professor of economics and agricultural economics at the
University of Wisconsin, John Strasma specializes in public
finance, environmental economics, and agricultural policy. His
first job after earning a Ph.D in economics from Harvard
University was to teach at the University of Chile, from 1960 to
1964. Since then, he has maintained a strong professional
profile in Latin America, having conducted research or consulted
in more than a dozen countries in the region.
Allen White, a senior associate of the Tellus Institute and the
director of its Risk Analysis Group, is an expert on the
prevention of pollution from industrial sources. Aside from
considerable experience in the United States, he has worked in
Nicaragua, Peru, and several other developing countries. He
received a Ph.D. in economic geography from Ohio State University
and is a senior research associate in Clark University's Center
for Technology, Environment, and Development.
A research associate in Tellus Institute's Risk Analysis Group,
Lori Lach received her M.P.H. from the University of California.
She specializes in the human health risks associated with air and
water pollution and improper handling of hazardous wastes.
John Kellenberg is a Ph.D. candidate in environmental economics
at Johns Hopkins University whose dissertation research addresses
the economic costs associated with tropical deforestation and
petroleum depletion in Ecuador. He has worked in the World
Bank's Environment Department. His wife, attorney Patricia
Kelly, assisted in the preparation of this report.
INTRODUCTION: POTABLE WATER SUPPLIES AND SEWAGE MANAGEMENT
by
Douglas Southgate, John Kellenberg, and Patricia Kelly
1. Urbanization and Pollution in Latin America
1.01 When the topic of environmental degradation in Latin America
is raised outside of the region, most people think immediately of
the destruction of topical rainforests and other natural
habitats. This response is understandable. Those ecosystems
harbor a wealth of biodiversity. Furthermore, tropical
deforestation is an important cause of increasing atmospheric
concentrations of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.
1.02 Within the region, however, environmental concerns are much
different. To be sure, many Latin Americans worry about the loss
and degradation of ecosystems. But for most, deteriorating air
and water quality in urban areas and the mishandling of
industrial and household wastes are more immediate problems.
1.03 The attention devoted to environmental issues in Latin
America's cities is bound to grow with time. The region, it
should be remembered, is more urbanized than any other part of
the developing world. In the middle 1980s, two-thirds of all
Latin Americans lived in localities officially designated as
urban; by contrast, 70 percent of the population of Africa and 76
percent of South Asia's population were rural (Merrick, 1991, p.
23). During the last ten years, growth of cities has exceeded
general demographic increase throughout the region. The day is
fast approaching when Latin America will be as urbanized as
Europe and North America, if not more so.
1.04. Rapid urbanization has been accompanied by severe pollution
and a general lack of municipal services. At best, emissions
controls on vehicles and industrial facilities have been lax.
Also, provision of potable water and solid waste services has
failed to keep pace with demand. As a result, millions of Latin
Americans now suffer respiratory ailments from breathing dirty
air, gastrointestinal diseases from drinking dirty water, or
both. The costs are enormous, in terms of lost employment,
increased expenditures on medical services, diminished
intellectual capacity among children, as well as reduced life
expectancy.
1.05 Dixon (1993) contends that an opportunity now exists to
pursue environmentally sound urban development in Latin America.
The economic folly of "growing first and cleaning up later" is
becoming obvious. In city after city and industry after
industry, emissions must now be brought down to acceptable levels
at a cost far above what would have been paid had more efficient
and less polluting technologies been adopted earlier. In light
of this experience, governments and the citizens they represent
are much more receptive than they used to be to investments and
policy reforms that have a demonstrable impact on environmental
quality. Such is the case in Ecuador, where urban pollution has
become acute.
2. The Environmental Challenge Facing Ecuador's Cities
2.01 The country that is the geographic focus of this study is
about the size of the United Kingdom or the state of Colorado.
In just two generations, it has been transformed from a lightly
populated, rural county to a semi-urban one with the highest
ratio of people to land area in South America. At the time of
the first comprehensive census in 1950, the national population
stood at 3.3 million, of whom 28 percent lived in cities. Forty
years later, census workers counted 9.7 million Ecuadorians, 55
percent of whom resided in incorporated urban areas.
2.02 Southgate and Whitaker (1994, pp. 13-15) point out that
rural population density in the western two-thirds of the country
("i.e.", outside of the Amazonian lowlands east of the Andes) has
not changed significantly since the early 1970s. Indeed, five
highland and coastal provinces actually experienced a decline in
rural population between 1974 and 1990. The impact associated
with a large gap between birth and death rates, then, was felt in
Ecuador's cities, which grew by 4.5 percent a year during the
1980s.
2.03. Rural-to-urban migration has been affected in various ways
by government policy. Alarmed by the large number of campesinos
crowding into Quito (the national capital), Guayaquil (the
principal port and most populous urban area), and a half-dozen or
so medium-sized cities, municipal governments have tried to stem
the tide by providing nothing more than minimal services to the
slums where migrants tend to settle. But at the same time,
emigration from the countryside has been accelerated by a set of
macroeconomic and sectoral policies that discriminated against
agriculture and other parts of the rural economy (Scobie,
Jardine, and Greene).
2.04. The impacts of public policy on migration should not be
exaggerated. Had a bias-free policy framework been in place,
large numbers of people still would have been drawn away from
farming since economic progress, as measured by GDP growth, is
almost always accompanied by a progressive reduction in the
portion of the labor force engaged in crop and livestock
production. Thus, much of the urbanization that Ecuador has
experienced in recent years can be regarded as inevitable.
2.05. Although this report addresses the environmental problems
that have arisen as Ecuador's cities have grown, it is important
to note that urbanization can result in major environmental
benefits by lessening pressures on fragile rural ecosystems.
Southgate and Whitaker (1994, p. 29) argue that the rural poor
encroach on biologically diverse tropical forests, erodible
Andean hillsides, and other unique or fragile environments when
they cannot get remunerative work outside of farming, because of
inadequate human capital formation, labor market rigidities, or
both. In a similar vein, Foster (1992) has drawn on
cross-country comparisons to show that urbanization is negatively
correlated with deforestation rates, population growth, and per
capital energy consumption.
2.06 The environmental challenge facing urban centers in Ecuador
and around the world is largely a management and policy
challenge. In the face of escalating demand for municipal
services associated with increases in population and living
standards, public agencies and private firms that provide those
services must do their job as efficiently as they can. By the
same token, firms and households must avoid wasting and
misallocating water, energy, and other resources if environmental
quality is to be maintained or improved. Peak performance at all
levels requires that an appropriate set of policies be in place.
2.07 Management by governmental agencies, private businesses, and
individual households has been extremely inefficient in Quito,
Guayaquil, and other Ecuadorian cities. Since potable water and
solid waste services have not been delivered at minimal cost,
large numbers of urban households rely on alternatives that are
more expensive and of inferior quality. Many neighborhoods go
without garbage collection altogether. At the same time,
manufacturing enterprises in Ecuador waste large amounts of water
and energy.
2.08. A disproportionate share of the burden of inefficiency has
been shouldered by the poor. As a rule, marginal neighborhoods
have been the last to be served by municipal potable water and
sanitation systems. At the same time, pollution has been
especially heavy in places where the urban poor are obliged to
live and work. Breihl "et al." (1983) reported that, whereas
infant mortality rates in upper class districts of Quito were
approximately 5 per 1,000 during the early 1980s, rates in poor
neighborhoods were considerably higher -- 129 per 1,000 -- in
part because of poor ambient quality.
2.09 More often than not, mismanagement has been a consequence of
misguided or inappropriate public policies. In the 1970s, when
Ecuador became one of Latin America's leading petroleum exporters
and oil revenues accounted for as much as three-quarters of the
national budget (Marshall-Silva, 1988), the central government
assumed more responsibility for functions like planning and
budgeting. Local governments, which saw their role diminish, no
longer had as strong an incentive to design and operate potable
water and sanitation systems as economically as possible. At the
same time, heavy subsidies for energy, water, and other natural
resource inputs were introduced. This resulted in enormous waste
and misallocation (Southgate and Whitaker, 1994).
3. USAID's Contribution to Improved Urban Management in Ecuador
3.01 The 1994-1995 USAID Mission Statement places considerable
emphasis on environmental protection. The fourth strategic
objective aims to "promote the sustainable use of natural
resources, the conservation of biological diversity, and the
control of pollution." Pursuit of this long-term goal follows
the Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) Bureau's strategy to
control, reduce, and prevent urban and industrial pollution,
thereby addressing the environmental impacts of urbanization and
industrialization.
3.02 Goals set by USAID/Ecuador are complemented by activities of
USAID's Regional Housing and Urban Development Office for South
America (RHUDO/SA), which is based in Quito. The Mission and
RHUDO/SA have designed and funded programs aimed at mitigating
urban and industrial pollution. Specific activities include (a)
the promotion of policies, economic incentives, and institutional
capacity as well as the adoption of industrial technologies that
reduce pollution through increased efficiency achieved by
prevention, reuse, recycling and by-product recovery, (b)
promotion of low-cost, low-maintenance solutions to municipal
solid and liquid waste problems; and (c) promotion of best
practices in urban environmental management.
3.03 USAID/Ecuador activities in industrial pollution mitigation
contribute to the goal of diminished industrial contamination by
stimulating the adoption of cleaner production techniques. With
technical assistance provided by the centrally-funded
Environmental Pollution Prevention Project (EP3), local
foundations, and manufacturers' associations, USAID/Ecuador has
introduced approaches to decrease waste generation in a number of
industries and has mobilized cooperation among communities,
industries, and municipalities to support and replicate pollution
prevention measures. EP3 activities also focus on improving the
ability of municipal governments to manage services that directly
affect environmental quality and human health.
3.04 USAID/Ecuador goals are being advanced by targeted funding
by other bilateral development agencies, the World Bank, and the
Inter-American Development Bank (IDB). EP3's technical
assistance from USAID/Ecuador was used to develop terms of
reference for a $2 million, IDB-financed clean-up of the Guayas
River Estuary. Implementation of this project will reduce
household and industrial contamination and improve health and
protect coastal ecosystems in and around Ecuador's largest urban
area, Guayaquil.
3.05 USAID/Ecuador activities also support institutional
capabilities in local non-governmental organizations, like
Corporacion OIKOS, that seek to address urban and peri-urban
environmental needs and to promote sustainable natural resource
development. OIKOS has received support from USAID/Ecuador and
RHUDO/SA to promote the adoption of improved technologies to
reduce industrial pollution. Similarly, the mission co- financed
a workshop held by the Ecuadorian-American Chamber of Commerce to
identify the major pollution sources in Quito and to develop an
action plan to abate environmental contamination.
4. International Interests
4.01 USAID/Ecuador activities aimed at improving environmental
quality in Ecuador proceed hand in hand with efforts to promote
economic growth and increased trade throughout the region. The
Declaration of Principles at the December 1994 Summit of the
Americas stresses the importance of environmental quality.
"Social progress and economic prosperity can be sustained only if
our people live in a healthy environment and our ecosystems and
natural resources are managed carefully and responsibly."
The Summit reflected commitments made at the 1992 United Nations
Conference on Environment and Development, held in Rio de
Janeiro, to create cooperative partnerships to strengthen
institutional capacities aimed at preventing and controlling
pollution, protecting ecosystems, using biological resources on a
sustainable basis, and encouraging clean, efficient and
sustainable energy production and use.
4.02 Aware that trade and investment serve as the main engines
for growth in the Americas, it is imperative that nations work
together to increase technological, financial, and other forms of
cooperation, as well as facilitate information exchange in areas
such as affordable and environmentally sound technologies.
Nations participating in the Summit of the Americas were urged to
strengthen and build technical and institutional capacity to
address environmental priorities such as pesticides, lead
contamination, pollution prevention, risk reduction, waste and
sanitation issues, improved water and air quality, access to safe
drinking water, urban environmental problems, and to promote
public participation and awareness. Similarly, participants were
encouraged to promote cooperative activities for developing
environmental policies, laws, and institutions, as well as
establishing mechanisms for cooperation among governmental
agencies, particularly in the legal and enforcement areas.
5. Outline of this Assessment
5.01 This assessment of urban and industrial environmental
problems, commissioned by USAID/Ecuador and RHUDO/SA, comprises
four reports. The first focuses on potable water supply and
sewage management and the second on air pollution. The third
report is about the prevention and regulation of emissions from
industrial sources and the fourth has to do with the management
of municipal solid wastes. A summary of key findings follows.
5.02 Potable Water Supply and Sewage Management. Ecuador is
blessed with abundant water resources and hydroelectric power
potential. Large sums have been spent on the dams, canals, and
related infrastructure needed to exploit this endowment. By and
large, however, the return on this investment has been
disappointing. As a rule, payments from agricultural,
industrial, and household beneficiaries of governmental water
resource development projects have amounted to a small fraction
of those projects' financial costs and the environmental and
inter-sectoral impacts of development have been neglected.
Because of poor cost recovery, municipal water systems find it
difficult to serve poor neighborhoods, the residents of which
have no choice other than to depend on sources of water that are
expensive, dirty, or both.
5.03 The public health gains of putting municipal water systems
on a sounder financial footing would be enormous. Money that is
currently used to subsidize water consumption by relatively
affluent households would instead be available to extend and
upgrade service. This would, in turn, diminish the incidence of
waterborne disease. But improved cost recovery, which Quito is
starting to achieve, is only a first, albeit necessary, step
toward efficient water development. The downstream costs created
when untreated sewage is dumped into rivers must be taken into
account when decisions are being made about wastewater treatment,
which is practically unheard of in Ecuador. Likewise, watershed
management requirements and opportunity costs associated with
forgoing alternative water uses must be considered when expansion
of any given use is being proposed.
5.05 Air Pollution. During the past quarter century, industrial
output, vehicle numbers, and fuel consumption have increased
dramatically in Ecuador. As a result, serious air pollution
problems have arisen in the country's major cities. This is
especially true in Quito, where traffic has become severely
congested and temperature inversions occur frequently.
5.06 Monitoring of air quality is rudimentary in the national
capital and practically non-existent in other cities. Likewise,
incidence of respiratory disease traced to pollution and other
factors, like the incidence of intestinal maladies resulting from
inadequate access to clean water, is difficult to determine with
a high degree of precision. Nevertheless, it seems to be the
case that air pollution is costing Ecuador tens of millions of
dollars a year in terms of medical treatment expenses, time lost
from work, and excess mortality.
5.07 Quito's municipal government is targeting its pollution
control efforts on industrial sources, which account for most
total suspended particulates (TSPs) and sulfur dioxide in the
air, as well as buses and trucks. Early this year, for example,
stiff fines began to be assessed on the owners of diesel-fueled
vehicles that spew out especially noxious exhausts.
5.08 Industrial Pollution. Historically an agricultural nation,
Ecuador has experienced rapid industrial development in recent
decades. Since water and energy prices have been subsidized,
manufacturing enterprises that use those inputs intensively, such
as food processing, textiles, and chemicals, are prominent in
Quito and Guayaquil, where most of the country's factories are
located. The toxic intensity of Ecuadorian industry is high as
well.
5.09 A legal framework for controlling industrial pollution began
to be put in place nearly a quarter century ago. That framework
has been subject to periodic revision and, by and large, the
specific regulations needed to effect general policy goals have
not been adopted. Neither has the institutional capacity needed
for effective regulation been developed. As a result, public
policy for controlling pollution from industrial sources has been
a hit-or-miss enterprise, at best.
5.10 Energy and water subsidies are being reduced sharply. As a
result, individuals firms' interest in adopting more efficient
technology, which tends to create less pollution, has increased
substantially. Responding to this interest, USAID and other
development agencies, working through the Ecuadorian public
sector as well as local nongovernmental organizations, have
provided technical assistance and related services. This sort of
approach needs to be complemented by policies, like emissions
charges, that strengthen incentives to adopt cleaner production
methods.
5.11 Solid Waste Management. The local institutions responsible
for collecting and disposing of the garbage generated by
households and businesses in Ecuador's major cities are in flux.
Guayaquil has begun to contract out solid waste services and a
new municipal enterprise has been created in the national
capital. Other cities are investigating various alternatives to
having those services provided by local government, as has been
the norm.
5.12 Regardless of how institutional issues are settled,
providing adequate solid waste services in Ecuador is a
considerable challenge and how it is met carries major
consequences for human health. At this point, it seems to make a
great deal to maintain current financing arrangements ("i.e.", a
surcharge on electricity tariffs). Also, choices regarding
standards to be applied in new landfills must be decided and
recycling and waste reduction have to be encouraged. In general,
innovative techniques must be applied so that garbage can be
collected and disposed of cheaply and with minimal threat to the
environment and human health.
6. References
Breihl, J., E. Granda, A. Campana, and O. Betancourt. CIUDAD Y
MUERTO INFANTIL. Quito: Ediciones CEAS, 1983.
Dixon, J. "The Urban Environmental Challenge in Latin America"
(LATEN Dissemination Note No. 4), Latin America Technical
Department, World Bank, Washington, 1993.
Foster, J. "The Role of the City in Environmental Management,"
Regional Housing and Urban Development Office, U.S. Agency for
International Development, Bangkok, 1992.
Marshall-Silva, J. "Ecuador: Windfalls of a New Exporter" in A.
Gelb (ed.), OIL WINDFALLS: BLESSING OR CURSE? Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1988.
Merrick, T. "Population Pressures in Latin America" POPULATION
BULLETIN 41:3 (1991) 3-50.
Scobie, G., V. Jardine, and D. Greene. "The Importance of Trade
and Exchange Rate Policies for Agriculture in Ecuador" FOOD
POLICY 16:1 (1990) 34-47.
Southgate, D. and M. Whitaker. ECONOMIC PROGRESS AND THE
ENVIRONMENT: ONE DEVELOPING COUNTRY'S POLICY CRISIS. New York:
Oxford University Press, 1994.
POTABLE WATER SUPPLIES AND SEWAGE MANAGEMENT
by
Kenneth D. Frederick, with Douglas Southgate, and Lori Lach
1. Water Institutions in Ecuador
1.01 Ecuador is blessed with relatively abundant water resources
and hydroelectric power potential. Per capita renewable supplies
exceed 28,000 m3 per annum. However, this natural endowment
could be harnessed much more effectively to satisfy human
demands. Moreover, current uses and abuses are creating enormous
environmental damage, to the detriment of current as well as
future consumers.
1.02 All water resources were nationalized by Ecuador's 1972
Water Law. Existing users were granted nontransferable
usufructuary rights that are subject to forfeiture for
inefficient use. The Instituto Ecuatoriano de Recursos
Hidraulicos (INERHI) was created to plan, administer, and
regulate water use for all purposes. In addition, it was
supposed to supervise all irrigation, drainage, and flood control
activities and was charged with designing, constructing, and
operating irrigation systems.
1.03 INERHI never had either the political support or the
technical and financial capacity needed to fulfill these mandates
(Southgate and Whitaker, 1994). As a result, water resource
development proceeded in a largely ad hoc manner, often in
response to local political interests. Responsibility for water
resource planning and management is being transferred to seven
regional agencies, which are still being established, as well as
the newly created Consejo Nacional de Recursos Hidricos. So far,
institutional reform has focused on irrigation, which accounts
for 90 percent of water consumption in the country (ECLAC, 1994)
and is woefully inefficient (Southgate and Whitaker, 1994).
1.04 Until 1994, the Instituto Ecuatoriano de Obras Sanitarias
(IEOS) was formally "responsible for the planning of the drinking
water supply and sanitation sector, setting standards, preparing
drinking water supply, sewage and storm drainage projects,
securing funding for projects, and managing the construction and
maintenance of drinking water supply systems in both urban and
rural areas of the country" (ECLAC, 1994). However, that agency
concentrated on supplying potable water to rural areas. Larger
cities established separate public companies to deliver water
supplies and also to provide for sewerage and stormwater drainage
services to their citizens. IEOS was dissolved in 1994 and its
responsibilities and part of its staff were transferred to the
Ministerio de Desarrollo Urbano y Vivienda (MINDUVI).
1.05 MINDUVI's capacity to test potable water quality and to
enforce existing standards, which were set in 1976 and need
updating, is very limited. For example, the maximum fine it can
impose for violating standards is just US$25. It is very much
involved in a current initiative to formulate a new national
water and sanitation policy. So is the Inter-American
Development Bank (IDB), which is helping to design a national
regulatory framework that will include provisions relating to the
installation, operation, financing, and control of water supply
and sewerage services (IDB, 1994). However, municipal companies
retain primary responsibility for potable water supply in urban
areas. The national institution with which they are in closest
contact is the Banco Ecuatoriano de Desarrollo (BEDE), which
provides technical and financial assistance for the development
of water supply and wastewater infrastructure.
1.06 Although municipal water companies have autonomy over
administration and assets and supposedly operate on a commercial
basis, the prices they charge for various services are usually
controlled by the local city council (ECLAC, 1994).
Historically, water rates have been set too low to cover
operation and maintenance costs. Consequently, public sector
deficits have widened, maintenance of existing infrastructure has
been poor, and construction of new facilities has depended on
access to government financing.
1.07 Under the circumstances, it is hardly surprising that
performance of urban water and sewage systems has been poor. In
general, water supplies have been unreliable, with large numbers
of citizens, especially in poor neighborhoods, receiving no
service whatsoever from local water companies and many more
receiving water that is of low quality or subject to
interruption. Moreover, water supplies have been developed and
wastewater disposed of with little concern for the impacts on
other water users or the environment.
1.08 An immediate priority for water policy reform in Ecuador is
to introduce and enforce tariffs that cover the full cost of
providing water and sewerage services and also to reduce the
dependence on subsidies that have proven to be inadequate and
unreliable. Beyond this, local, regional, and national
institutions involved in the delivery of potable water and sewage
services will be called on to help resolve a set of issues that,
up to now, have been largely ignored in Ecuador. Competition for
water is increasing among irrigators, hydroelectricity producers,
and household and industrial consumers. This means that prices
should reflect more closely the full costs, including opportunity
costs, associated with any particular use. When an upstream
source is being developed for household and industrial
consumption, for example, the economic sacrifices associated with
diminished irrigation or hydroelectricity production need to be
built into tariffs. Likewise, water consumers should pay for the
damages that result when untreated sewage is discharged.
1.09 In the reviews of potable water development in Quito,
Guayaquil, and Machala that follow, attention is given to the
full range of pricing issues that each city must now face.
2. Water Supply and Sanitation in Quito
2.01 Until very recently, performance of the municipal water
company serving Ecuador's capital city left much to be desired.
In 1988, the Empresa Municipal de Agua Potable de Quito (EMAP-Q)
lacked the basic information on inventories and costs required
for adequate planning, budgeting, and pricing. Tariff revenues
amounted to just 54 percent of expenses. Because of low cost
recovery, the company was unable to raise private capital for
expanding or improving service and it needed government subsidies
just to operate. Only 55 percent of the municipal population
received acceptable service, 10 percent had deficient service,
and 35 percent were without any service.
2.02 Management of EMAP-Q has improved dramatically in the 1990s.
With technical assistance from USAID, the company developed
accurate cost accounting systems, introduced a scheme for
controlling water losses, and started charging customers higher
tariffs. To reduce the costs of extending service, the company
lowered capacity norms from 250 liters per person per day (the
standard for established neighborhoods) to 100-150 liters per
person per day in marginal areas. This adjustment enabled the
company to reduce pressure requirements and to use less expensive
pipes for secondary connections. Overall, these changes lowered
the costs of delivering water to poorer neighborhoods by 20 to 25
percent without reducing the quality of service (Carrion, 1993).
2.03 The consequences of improved management and the introduction
of better cost accounting systems are indicated in Table 2.1.
Between 1991 and 1993, the number of connections increased by 21
percent and average revenues nearly doubled with very little
change in the volume of water sold. As far as can be determined,
1993 was the first time when total revenues covered all operation
and maintenance costs as well as amortization of deferred costs
and depreciation of fixed assets (although the latter were
probably underestimated). That same year, 80 percent of the
municipal population was judged to be receiving adequate service;
established neighborhoods were fully covered, and 60 percent of
the households in marginal areas had connections (Carrion, 1993).
Table 2.1 Potable Water Supply and Tariff Revenues in Quito
1991 1992 1993
average connections 144,152 157,665 174,398
volume of water sold (thousand m3) 84,978 87,823 88,527
amount billed (thousand US$) 9,618 12,189 17,297
average revenues (US$ per m3) 0.11 0.14 0.20
source: IDB, 1994
2.04 By no means has every opportunity to improve the efficiency
of potable water delivery in Quito been fully exploited. An
evaluation carried out in 1992 (IDB, 1994) revealed that there
was no accounting for 45 percent of the city's water supply,
either because of physical losses (25 percent) or because there
was no billing (20 percent). Furthermore, there were large
differences in the quantities of water used by those with and
without meters, which suggests that installing additional meters
might produce even greater water savings. For example, metered
connections in Quito represented 66 percent of all those
connected to the system but accounted for only 27 percent of
consumption, which implies a five-fold difference in per capita
use. The magnitude of this gap between metered and unmetered
water use makes the authors of the study question how unmetered
use was measured (Gavin "et al.", 1992). But even if unmetered
consumption were only one-third of the reported level, the
potential to reduce water use through the installation of meters
would still be great.
2.05 Households with connections to the municipal system continue
to pay only a small fraction of the rates paid by people
dependent on tanker trucks and an even smaller portion of the
estimated willingness-to-pay for water and sewerage services.
For instance, 60 percent of the water users surveyed in late 1989
and early 1990 were supplied at least partially by tanker trucks
and paid an average of US$4.31 per month for 4 cubic meters, or
US$1.08 per cubic meter. By contrast, the prices paid for water
delivered through the municipal system ranged from US$0.06 to
US$0.22 per cubic meter for residential users and from US$0.11 to
US$0.37 per cubic meter for industrial users. Another indication
of the benefits of being connected to the public water and
sewerage systems is that this increased the estimated value of a
housing unit by US$1,363. In addition, a contingent valuation
study estimated the willingness-to-pay for drinking water at
US$0.43 per cubic meter, which is twice the highest price paid by
residential users. The estimated average willingness-to- pay for
sewerage services was US$0.79 per month (Velasco and Infante,
1990).
2.06 Improving system efficiency and reducing subsidies are
essential since the cost of developing new sources of supply is
very high. Most of those sources are located on the eastern
slopes of the Andes, which is where most of Quito's water is now
obtained. Raw water quality is excellent in that region. But
getting it to the city's treatment plants and distribution system
involves building canals and pipelines in ecological preserves on
the eastern slope of the Andes mountains and then pumping the
water substantial heights to get it over or through the
mountains. Energy expenditures, associated mainly with pumping,
already amount to one-fifth of the total cost of supplying water
from EMAP-Q's Papallacta project (Mena, 1995).
2.07 System efficiency, subsidy, and service extension issues are
now being addressed by the Empresa Municipal de Agua Potable y
Alcantarillado de Quito (EMAAP-Q), which was created in 1994
through the merger of the city's water supply and sewage
companies. This institutional change is producing cost savings
and the pricing structure is being simplified, by reducing the
number of rate categories from ten to four. The intent is to
establish a uniform price per unit of water regardless of
differences in water delivery costs (Mena, 1995).
2.08 Lowering costs and the dependence on subsidies, it should be
emphasized, will make it possible to extend service. At present,
200,000 Quitenos lack connection to the municipal system.
Furthermore, 15 to 35 percent of the households with a connection
have no sewer service. It should be kept in mind that industrial
and other large users might react to higher prices by using more
groundwater. This response will need to be monitored, especially
in those places where groundwater resources are being depleted.
2.09 There is another benefit of the merger, which is that it
ought to be possible to plan and deliver water and sewerage
services in a more coordinated fashion. The technical challenges
of diminishing pollution are considerable, in large part because
Quito has a combined system for carrying away sewage and
stormwater. However, with assistance from the IDB, EMAAP-Q is
preparing an integrated master plan for medium- and long- term
investments. Improvement of sewerage services is an especially
high priority since, at present, all wastewater is dumped
untreated into the Machangara and Monjas Rivers, which pass
through the city. This creates major costs downstream, where
contaminated water is used extensively for irrigation. An
analysis of the quality of the water in these two rivers shows
elevated levels (that frequently exceed acceptable standards for
agricultural use) of total dissolved solids, chemical oxygen
demand, organics and inorganics, heavy metals, coliform bacteria,
and turbidity (Gomez, 1994).
3. Water Supply and Sanitation in Guayaquil
3.01 Quito imposes large costs on downstream water users because
of its failure to treat sewage. Similar problems arise in
Guayaquil. Wastewater discharged at the city's three outlets
either receives limited pretreatment (Castillo, 1995) or no
treatment at all. Even the pretreatment amounts to a temporary
diversion of pollutants because all sludges and slurries from the
plant in question are eventually dumped in rivers flowing past
the city (Mayor's Office, 1995). It is possible that water
pollution from Guayaquil has combined with pesticide run-off to
cause high shrimp mortality in downstream maricultural
operations.
3.02 Not all of the costs associated with inadequate sewerage
services in Guayaquil are "externalized." The sewage system run
by the Empresa Municipal de Alcantarillado de Guayaquil (EMA-G)
was designed to serve 0.5 million people ("i.e.", less than
one-fourth of the current population of the company's service
area) and has been poorly maintained over the years. With the
company operating at a substantial financial loss (Gavin "et
al.", 1992), many parts of the city have no service and large
volumes of wastewater routinely are trapped in stagnant pools.
The most spectacular example of this problem is contamination of
the Estero Salado, which runs through the center of Guayaquil.
Because the estuary is unable to flush out the large quantities
of industrial and municipal wastes that it receives, it has
become an enormous open sewer. Plans for dealing with this
problem are under study.
3.03 Just as Guayaquil's businesses and households are the source
of a considerable amount of water pollution, the city incurs
major costs due to discharges from upstream farms and urban
areas. The port city is located at the lower end of the Guayas
River Basin, which is Ecuador's agricultural heartland. Water
withdrawn at the La Toma Water Treatment Plant, which is situated
by the Daule River 30 km north of Guayaquil, often contains high
concentrations of fertilizers, pesticides, and eroded soil, along
with other pollutants. [Salt water intrusion, which used to be a
problem at La Toma, has been resolved by construction of the
Daule- Peripa Dam, which is located upstream; water can be
released from the dam's reservoir during the dry season, which
runs from June to December, to prevent salinity problems
(Castillo, 1995).]
3.04 Poor water quality in the Daule River and other streams
around Guayaquil creates two sorts of costs. The first is
treatment expenses. At present, the Empresa Provincial de Agua
Potable del Guayas (EPAP-Guayas), a provincial enterprise, uses
conventional water treatment processes, consisting of pH
adjustment with lime, coagulation with aluminum sulfate,
sedimentation, filtration, and disinfection with chlorine gas.
The second cost, which has to do with the consumption of
inadequately treated water, is incurred because the La Toma
facility, with a capacity of 630,000 m3/day, is not large enough
to serve Guayaquil adequately. In 1993, only 55 percent of the
2.2 million people living in the city and its suburbs were
connected to EPAP-Guayas's distribution system. An additional 25
percent received EPAP-Guayas water from tanker trucks. The other
fifth of the population was not served at all (Chudy, Arniella,
and Gill, 1993).
3.05 Adding more treatment capacity, then, has been a matter of
great urgency in Guayaquil. A new facility, with a planned
capacity of 864,000 m3/day, is now being constructed alongside
the La Toma plant (Chudy, Arniella, and Gil, 1993). In addition
to making it possible to deliver water to that portion of the
metropolitan population that currently receives no service from
EPAP-Guayas, this investment ought to improve service quality for
many households and businesses that are already connected to the
system. Because of a lack of system pressure, residents in the
southern part of the city receive water for only a few hours
during the early morning hours. Even then, pumps are often
required to extract water, which is often contaminated because of
porous pipes.
3.06 EPAP-Guayas is being transformed into a municipal water
company and merged with EMA-G. In addition, there are plans to
privatize many water supply and sewerage services. But
regardless of institutional arrangements, major improvements in
management will be needed if investments in the potable water
distribution system, sewers, and related infrastructure are to be
financed and maintained. EPAP-Guayas typically bills for less
than a third of its production (Subdireccion Ejecutiva de
Planificacion de Guayaquil, 1995).
3.07 The authors of an evaluation of EPAP-Guayas that was carried
out in the early 1990s concluded that the company was
staggeringly inefficient. The population it is meant to serve
suffers enormously as a consequence, in terms of water delivery
that is sporadic, of low quality, or entirely non-existent.
4. Water Supply and Sanitation in Machala
4.01 If anything, the state of potable water and sewerage
services in Machala and the adjacent city of Puerto Bolivar is
worse than what it is in Ecuador's largest city. Raw water
quality is poor, system capacity is inadequate, a large portion
of potable water cannot be accounted for, and wastewater is
discharged without treatment into the Gulf of Guayaquil. If
these problems are to be resolved, management of the municipal
water company will have to improve dramatically.
4.02 Machala's water comes from four deep wells as well as one
plant, La Lucha, where surface water is treated. Well flow,
which amounts to 242 liters per second (l/s), is delivered to the
city without treatment since it is supposedly of high quality.
The same cannot be said of the 80 l/s reaching La Lucha. After
being diverted from the Jubones River, that water travels 30 km
through an open canal that winds through urban areas and banana
plantations. When it arrives at the treatment plant, it is
turbid and high in coliform bacteria. It also carries pesticides
and, on occasion, trace amounts of mercury because of artisanal
gold mining and processing in the mountains east of the city.
The water leaving La Lucha, which is expensive to operate and was
not designed to remove the organic chemicals contained in
pesticides, is not fit to drink. That plant is supposed to be
closed by 1996 (I. Municipio de Machala, 1994).
4.03 Closure of the treatment plant will widen the gap between
demand and supply in Machala. Whereas the former is estimated to
be 1,000 l/s, current flow from surface sources and wells is only
322 l/s (see above). Of that supply, 30 l/s is removed at pump
stations and delivered by tanker truck. Of the 292 l/s that
enters the distribution system, at least half, and perhaps as
much as 60 percent (Arniella, 1993), is lost due to leaks. Aside
from commercial and industrial establishments, 98.5 thousand
people ("i.e.", 62 percent of Machala's total population of 158.9
thousand) are served (I. Municipio of Machala, 1994). Moreover,
as is the case in southern Guayaquil (see above), being connected
to Machala's distribution system is no guarantee that water will
be available when wanted. More than three-fourths of those with
connections have reservoir tanks and more than one-fourth use a
pump to fill those tanks or to provide pressurized water directly
to the house. All but 4 percent of served households have no
water pressure at one time or another during a typical day (I.
Municipio of Machala, 1994).
4.04 If anything, connected households are getting what they pay
for. There are no water meters in Machala and dwellings in the
center of the city are assessed an annual fee equivalent to
US$1.00. The situation is much different for the customers of
tanker trucks, who must pay approximately US$0.50 to get a
55-gallon (208-liter) barrel filled. Since their daily
consumption averages 43 liters per person (I. Municipio of
Machala, 1994), a family of four can expect to spend a little
more than US$300 a year for water, which amounts to a significant
portion of household income in the poor neighborhoods not served
by the municipal system.
4.05 It is entirely possible that the quality of water delivered
by tanker trucks is superior to what connected households and
businesses received. Lack of pressure in the pipeline during
periods of high demand, 50 percent leakage from potable water
pipes, a porous sewage system, and the widespread use of suction
pumps all combine to draw sewage into the potable water supply
(I. Municipio of Machala, 1994). The city has no functioning
water quality laboratory and, at present, the respective
contributions of poor quality of surface water sources,
substandard operations at La Lucha, and wastewater intrusions are
difficult to quantify. Nevertheless, it is clear that levels of
coliform bacteria are excessive. It was no accident that, when
cholera entered Ecuador in the early 1990s, it did so through
Machala.
4.06 There is no reason for potable water supply in Machala to be
the disaster that it is. The city is one of the most prosperous
in the country, with a per capita income nearly three times the
national average. Furthermore, construction of a regional
potable water system, comprising reservoirs, a plant capable of
treating 740 l/s, and pipelines, was completed in 1988. That
system now supplies several communities with filtered and
chlorinated water. However, Machala has never benefited, even
though it was supposed to do so. The immediate problem has to do
with the pipeline that was installed to deliver water to the
city. Built with inferior materials, it ruptures when subjected
to pressure tests. Replacing the pipeline would cost more than
US$10 million (I. Municipio of Machala, 1994).
4.07 If potable water infrastructure in Machala is deficient, the
city's public sewer system is practically nonexistent. Nearly
half the population receives no service at all, and, at best,
rely on substandard septic tanks and latrines that contaminate
aquifers. Sewers serving the other half discharge into open
canals that empty directly into the Gulf of Guayaquil and
adjacent wetlands. Exposure to waterborne disease is high in the
neighborhoods that border those canals (I. Municipio of Machala,
1994).
4.08 Unless and until households that are connected to potable
water pipes and sewers begin to pay more than a negligible amount
for the services they receive, the municipal enterprise that
provides those services will never have the financial means
needed to improve and expand the system.
5. The Health Impacts of Inadequate Potable Water and Sewerage
Services
5.01 When available water is unclean, most consumers choose to
employ some sort of remedial measure. The expense involved can
be considerable. For example, the residents of Jakarta spend
more than US$50 million each year boiling water; that amount is
equivalent to 1 percent of the value of all goods and services
produced in the city (Briscoe, 1993). No such estimates are
available for Ecuador, though no one doubts that the costs are
high.
5.02 In spite of the effort firms and households devote to
boiling, filtering, or otherwise treating water, remediation
often falls short of being perfectly comprehensive. When this
occurs, human health suffers, as the recent outbreak of cholera
in Machala and other parts of Ecuador demonstrates. Viruses that
cause the common cold, hepatitis A, and meningitis, bacteria
responsible for diarrhea, dysentery, typhoid fever, and cholera,
and protozoa that cause various sorts of intestinal disease can
all be carried in poorly treated water. Improper sewage disposal
provides a virtually inexhaustible supply of the same biological
pathogens. Also, poor hygiene practices, due in part to
inadequate access to clean water, leads to exposure to
fecally-carried pathogens. Finally, uncovered standing water is
a breeding medium for mosquitos and other insects responsible for
the transmission of malaria, yellow fever, and dengue (Feacham
"et al.", 1983).
5.03 Available data do not indicate the full dimensions of the
problem, although it is certain that waterborne diseases are the
primary cause of death among children in coastal Ecuador.
Numbers of cases for which medical attention is sought, which are
the most readily available measure of morbidity, amount to a tiny
fraction of total illness. For example, a survey of diarrheal
incidence undertaken recently by the Ministerio de Salud Publica
(MSP) revealed that there were at least 6 million cases a year in
the country (Laspina, 1995). In household interviews carried out
in the early 1990s, 19.5 percent of children under five in
Guayaquil and 15.9 percent of children from the same age cohort
in Quito and El Oro province were reported by their mothers to
have had diarrhea during the prior two weeks (CEPAR, 1994). One
survey in Guayaquil revealed that half the residents of middle
and upper income neighborhoods have a parasitic infection
(Martinez, 1995); estimates of prevalence in the marginal
neighborhoods of Ecuador's two largest cities range from 90 to
100 percent (Martinez, 1995). Yet morbidity data show that there
were fewer than 8,000 hospitalizations for intestinal infections
and parasitic diseases in Pichincha province, where more than
one-tenth of the national population resides (INEC, 1992).
5.04 Causes of mortality are also under-reported. Sometimes,
relatives of a deceased person report the cause of death to
authorities according to their own limited knowledge.
Alternatively, a doctor must make a determination in the absence
of a medical history. Furthermore, synergistic effects are
usually difficult to capture in official reports, even though
they are often very important. For example, the risk of dying
from diarrhea with measles is four times that of dying from
measles alone (Rutstein, Fermo, and Crespo, 1987) and parasites,
while generally not contributing directly to mortality, steal
vitamins and minerals from their hosts, which can lead to anemia
and malnutrition (Martinez, 1995).
5.05 Official statistics, then, should only be regarded as
indicators of where health risks are particularly severe. As
morbidity and mortality rates reported in Table 2.2 show,
exposure to fecally-carried pathogens is especially pronounced in
Guayaquil, Machala, and other parts of coastal Ecuador. In those
places, inadequate quantity and quality of water leads to
inadvertent ingestion of sewage and associated pathogens via
insect vectors, improper hygiene, and consumption of contaminated
water.
5.06 Comprehensive evaluation of the economic losses associated
with impaired health is always a complicated exercise, especially
when illness leads to death. Rarely is physical and emotional
suffering experienced by the deceased and loved ones easy to
express in monetary terms. However, income losses due to
premature demise and expenditures on medical treatment can be
estimated.
Table 2.2 Hospitalization and Mortality Rates by Province
1992 Hospitalization Rate
(per 10,000 inhabitants)
Pichincha Guayas El Or
infection and parasitic diseases
- intestinal 42.02 79.15 111.57
- other bacterial 1.81 1.17 2.20
- viral 2.88 2.88 5.16
- anthropod-transmitted 1.34 3.14 10.06
- other 2.75 2.54 3.68
- nutritional deficiencies 1.93 1.98 2.64
1993 Urban Mortality Rate
(per 10,000 inhabitants)
Pichincha Guayas El Oro
infection and parasitic diseases
- intestinal 1.34 1.97 1.96
- other bacterial 0.81 0.76 0.58
- viral 0.23 0.21 0.41
- anthropod-transmitted 0.08 0.08 0.17
- other 0.10 0.07 0.03
- nutritional deficiencies 0.98 0.71 0.89
Source: INEC (1992) for hospitalization numbers; INEC (1993) for
mortality data; CEPAR (1993) for population
5.07 An estimate of the present value of income losses for an
employed adult is obtained by supposing that, had he or she
lived, such an individual would have earned US$6 a day working 5
days a week, 50 weeks a year, for 30 more years. At a discount
rate of 10 percent, the present value of income not earned by
that person would have been:
30
Sum (US$6 x 5 x 50) x (1.08)-t = US$ 16,887.
t=1
In 1993, 377 residents of urban areas in Guayas province and 57
people living in Machala and other cities in El Oro province died
because of cholera, typhoid fever, and other bacterial infections
of the intestinal tract; approximately 23.5 percent of these
people were between 15 and 64 years of age (INEC, 1993).
Multiplying all these deaths by the preceding measure of the
present value of per capita foregone earnings yields an estimate
of one, but only one, of the costs resulting largely from
inadequate sewage treatment and limited access to clean water:
US$7,328,958.
5.08 Identifying the costs of morbidity that does not lead to
death is not much easier than assigning a price tag to premature
death. Problems arise in a place like Ecuador because most cases
are never reported to public health authorities (see above).
Even when a fairly reliable estimate of the number of cases of
some particular illness is available, the analyst is still left
with the problem of determining associated losses of work effort
as well as treatment expenses.
5.09 With respect to intestinal infections, one MSP official
suggests that about 10 percent are recorded officially (Laspina,
1995). The total number of cases in 1992 reported in the first
line of Table 2.3 are based on this information and recorded
incidence for the same year (INEC, 1992). Treatment expenses,
which are reported in the second line, amount to US$5 per visit
for the 10 percent of all cases that result in a visit to a
clinic (La Forgia and Balarezo, 1993) plus US$20 for oral
rehydration therapy (ORT) for the 1 percent of all cases that
require same (Margulis, 1992). Hospitalization and use of
antibiotics are rare (Laspina, 1995), so the costs associated
with those remedial measures have not been included in the
analysis. Finally, it can be supposed, conservatively, that an
average case results in the loss of one day of work, which is
valued at US$6. This is the basis of the costs reported in the
third line of Table 2.3.
Table 2.3 Selected Costs of Intestinal Morbidity in 1992
Pichincha Guayas El Oro
total number of cases (INEC, 1992)
73,790 199,070 46,030
expense of clinic visits and ORT
US$51,653 US$139,349 US$32,221
value of lost employment
US$442,740 US$1,194,420 US$276,180
5.10 Almost certainly, the cost estimates presented in Table 2.3
under- state the total disutility associated with intestinal
illness. In addition, they are probably much smaller than the
costs resulting from parasitic infection in Ecuador. MSP
officials report that prevalence of the latter among the
country's poor is 90 to 100 percent (Martinez, 1995). Along with
medical treatment expenses, which are incurred by a minority of
those afflicted, school performance of children with parasites is
undermined and workers' performance is impaired. To estimate the
latter impact, it can be supposed conservatively that 10 percent
of any given city's population is infected and that, on average,
infection causes a worker to earn 25 percent less than he or she
would otherwise. Using CEPAR's (1993) population estimates and
assuming average daily earnings of US$6, one arrives at the cost
estimates reported in Table 2.4.
Table 2.4 Selected Costs of Parasitic Infection in 1993
Urban Pichincha Urban Guayas Urban El Oro
infected adults of working age
128,000 191,827 29,075
effective working days lost
8,000,000 11,989,188 1,817,188
value of lost work
US$48,000,000 US$71,935,128 US$10,903,128
5.11 It must be stressed that the preceding estimates of
mortality and morbidity costs are of the "back-of-the-envelope"
variety. Some important consequences of illness have not been
evaluated and the respective contributions of dirty water,
inadequate sewage treatment, and other causes of infection have
not been specified. Nevertheless, even a simple economic
analysis reveals that inadequate access to clean water and sewage
services is a serious problem in Ecuador. Since provision of
safe drinking water and reliable sanitation are known to result
in reduced incidence of cholera, typhoid, amebiasis, and several
helminthic diseases (Okun, 1988), sizable benefits would result
from improving the performance of local water and sewage systems
in the three cities that are the geographic focus of this report
as well as in the rest of the country.
6. Policy Recommendations
6.01 For potable water supplies to be efficient, five types of
costs need to be analyzed. They are:
(1) the opportunity costs of the water, including the
environmental impacts on the source;
(2) the costs of storing and transporting water from the source
to the treatment plant;
(3) the costs of treating the water for domestic use;
(4) the costs of delivering the treated water to the user; and
(5) the costs of disposing of the wastewater.
6.02 None of the preceding costs is fully reflected in the
tariffs paid by household and industrial customers of Ecuador's
municipal water companies. As is common throughout the
developing world (Anton, 1993), prices have been designed to
cover a portion of the second through fourth costs -- that is,
the operating expenses involved in storing, transporting,
treating, and delivering water. As a result, local water
suppliers have come to depend on subsidies from the central
government for infrastructure development and maintenance. This
has tended to caused maintenance to be deferred until breakdowns
in service have occurred. Moreover, the quality of service has
been held hostage to political whims, the state of the national
treasury, and the availability of international assistance. In a
nutshell, subsidization of the second, third, and fourth costs of
potable water supply has created a "low level equilibrium" for
most Ecuador's cities. As Briscoe (1993) explains the
predicament, poor quality service is provided, for which consumer
willingness-to-pay and thus revenues are low; as a rule, service
deteriorates over time.
6.03 There is no doubt that many customers of Ecuador's municipal
water companies, including the residents of poor neighborhoods,
are prepared to break out of low level equilibrium. Where
services are unreliable or entirely absent, people pay much more
for water, either directly or indirectly, than what connection to
a well-functioning municipal system would cost. For example, a
family of four living in a poor part of Machala not served by the
city water company must now pay about US$300 a year for water
delivered by tanker truck (see above). To that cost, which
represents a major economic sacrifice for such a family, must be
added boiling and other in-house treatment expenses, the lost
wages and medical expenditures associated with waterborne
disease, or both. By contrast, a study carried out by the U.N.
Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (Lee,
undated) revealed that the capital, operating, and maintenance
costs of providing potable water as well as sewerage services to
a family of six in urban Ecuador would total no more than US$120.
In other words, the potential customers of the country's
municipal water companies are paying about three times what the
most basic of all basic commodities should cost.
6.04 To achieve a high level equilibrium, in which consumers
receive good service, are willing to pay for it, and revenues are
sufficient to operate, build, and maintain the desired system
(Briscoe, 1993), municipal companies have to be technically
competent, financially viable, and politically independent.
Almost by definition, such companies are in a position to charge
and collect from customers enough money to recover capital,
operating, and maintenance costs and, at the same time, are
responsible for the quality of services they provide. High level
equilibrium has not been reached yet in Quito. Water losses
remain excessive, more than 200,000 are still not connected to
the system, and monumental wastewater problems have not been
faced. Nevertheless, there have been major improvements in
recent years because EMAAP-Q has identified and controlled its
costs, increased its revenues, and extended its service.
6.05 Another pair of prerequisites for achieving high level
equilibrium at affordable prices are improved efficiency and
demand management. An analysis of the costs of raw water from
projects financed by the World Bank indicates that, in most
cases, the unit costs of additional water from the next
water-supply project is more than double the cost from existing
projects (Briscoe, 1993). Forestalling the need for new water
supply projects, through efficiency improvements and the reduced
consumption that results when price subsidies are eliminated,
provides both economic and environment benefits. Machala and
Guayaquil, where municipal companies cannot account for 50
percent or more of their water, can reap major benefits from
improving their distribution and billing systems.
6.06 Efficient potable water supply requires more than raising
tariffs enough to recover storage, transport, treatment, and
delivery costs. As is mentioned in the first part of this
report, the opportunity costs of developing water for any
particular use, including household and industrial consumption,
have been roundly ignored. So have the economic damages
associated with the discharge of untreated wastewater. This
approach is appropriate where resources are abundant and where
sewage emissions do not strain water bodies' assimilative
capacities. But water has become economically scarce in Ecuador
and the quality of its rivers, lakes, and streams is
deteriorating. Hence, the opportunity costs of developing water
for any single use, including household and industrial
consumption, can no longer be ignored. Neither can the damages
resulting from water quality deterioration.
6.07 It appears that initial steps are being taken toward
systematic internalization of all upstream and downstream costs
involved in water resource development. At the national level, a
Consejo Nacional de Recursos Hidricos is beginning to operate and
MINDUVI is formulating a new water and sanitation policy. In
addition, regional authorities, each with responsibility for a
major drainage basin, are being established. For the time being,
the latter are focusing on irrigation, which is appropriate in
many places since most water is used for crop and livestock
production. But over time, regional entities should evolve into
institutions capable of analyzing and settling inter-sectoral
conflicts. This would be appropriate since most trade-offs among
alternative uses of scarce water resources arise and are
therefore best resolved within a single watershed.
6.08 Guayaquil and Machala, which are both at the lower end of a
drainage basin, could be major beneficiaries of improved
basin-wide management. Because of chemical and manure run-off
and soil erosion from upstream farms and ranches and wastewater
emissions from upstream urban areas, both cities must now incur
sizable treatment costs and put up with high incidence of
waterborne disease. The case for basin-wide management might
seem less compelling in Quito, which obtains its water from
relatively pristine high watersheds east of the city. However,
its citizens suffer because contamination of the Machangara and
Monjas has resulted in the loss of the recreational and scenic
values that clean rivers provide. Also, irrigating with polluted
water withdrawn from those same two streams poses an indirect
health risk for the national capital. Furthermore, protecting
watersheds on the eastern slope of the Andes is important for
preserving both their ecological values and the quality of the
city's water.
6.09 Basin-wide management could impinge somewhat on agricultural
water use. In order to insure adequate supplies for
higher-valued household and industrial uses, minor reductions in
irrigation might be required in some places during the dry
season. In addition, controls on the application of pesticides
and fertilizers might be put in place. On the other hand,
treatment of urban wastewater would be a major boon for many
rural areas. Incidence of waterborne disease would increase and
there would be reduced risks of shrimp, irrigated crops, and
other commodities becoming contaminated.
6.10 Once tariffs have been raised enough to cover storage,
transport, treatment, and delivery costs, additional increases to
cover the full opportunity costs of potable water development and
wastewater disposal must be given serious consideration. The
latter increases, which should reflect the cost of developing
alternative supply sources, will be needed to safeguard the
environmental wealth being harnessed to provide water to Quito,
Guayaquil, and other Ecuadorian municipalities.
6.11 Finally, as the goal of completely recovering all five
costs identified at the beginning of this section is approached,
equity considerations should be taken into account as tariffs are
being set. At present, the distributional consequences of higher
prices are of no great concern since improving the finances of
municipal companies will make it possible to serve poor
neighborhoods, the residents of which are paying a lot for water
delivered by tanker trucks. In the future, a low basic tariff
could be charged households using small amounts of water and high
surcharges could be used where luxury uses, like swimming pools,
are involved.
6.12 Education will be needed to inform citizens and the
governmental decision-makers who represent them of the full costs
associated with the current poor level of service and the
potential benefits that would be derived from achieving high
level equilibrium in municipal water systems. Such an
understanding is probably essential for gaining acceptance for
improved cost recovery. It should not be terribly difficult to
convince people that access to safe, reliable drinking water at
the turn of a tap and reliable wastewater removal and treatment
are one of the best bargains any consumer can get. Ecuadorians,
like anybody else, should be willing to pay a fair price for
these services.
7. References
Anton, D. THIRSTY CITIES: URBAN ENVIRONMENTS AND WATER SUPPLY
IN LATIN AMERICA. Ottawa: International Development Research
Center, 1993.
Arniella, E. "Prefeasibility Study for Water Supply, Treatment,
and Distribution for Machala, Ecuador" (field report number 400),
Water and Sanitation for Health Project, Bureau for Research and
Development, U.S. Agency for International Development,
Washington, 1993.
Briscoe, J. 1993. "When the Cup is Half Full: Improving Water
and Sanitation Services in the Developing World" ENVIRONMENT 35:4
(1993) 6-15 and 28-37.
Carrion, R. "Evaluation of the Technical Assistance Provided by
USAID/Ecuador and RHUDO/SA through the WASH Project to Quito's
Municipal Water Company," U.S. Agency for International
Development, Quito, 1993.
Centro de Estudios de Poblacion y Paternidad Responsable (CEPAR).
PERFIL SOCIO-DEMOGRAFICO DEL ECUADOR. Quito: 1993.
Centro de Estudios de Poblacion y Paternidad Responsable (CEPAR).
POBLACION, SALUD Y NUTRICION EN EL ECUADOR. Quito: 1994.
Chudy, J., E. Arniella, and E. Gil. "Water Quality Assessment in
Ecuador" (field report number 390), Water and Sanitation for
Health Project, Bureau for Research and Development, U.S. Agency
for International Development, Washington, 1993.
Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC).
"A Guide to Water Resources Administration in the Countries of
Latin America and the Caribbean" (document number L/CR 1471),
Santiago, 1994.
Feacham, R., D. Bradley, H. Garelick, and D. Mara. SANITATION
AND DISEASE: HEALTH ASPECTS OF EXCRETA AND WASTEWATER
MANAGEMENT. Chichester: John Wiley and Sons, 1983.
Gavin, J., J. Darling, R. Carrion, R. Laport, and C. Stromberg.
"Performance Indicators for Selected Water Supply and Sanitation
Utilities in Ecuador" (field report number 376), Water and
Sanitation for Health Project, Bureau for Research and
Development, U.S. Agency for International Development,
Washington, 1992.
Gomez, E. "Status Ambiental de la Cuidad de Quito," Direccion de
Medio Ambiente, Distrito Metropolitano de Quito, 1994.
I. Municipio of Machala. "Application Form for Japan's Grant
Aid," 1994.
Instituto Nacional de Estadisticas y Censos (INEC). ANUARIO DE
ESTADISTICAS HOSPITALARIAS. Quito. 1992.
Instituto Nacional de Estadisticas y Censos (INEC). ANUARIO DE
ESTADISTICAS VITALES: NACIMIENTOS Y DEFUNCIONES. Quito, 1993.
Inter-American Development Bank. "Ecuador: Water Supply and
Sewerage Project for the City of Quito - Loan Proposal,"
Washington, 1994.
La Forgia, G., and M. Balarezo. "Cost Recovery in Public Sector
Hospitals in Ecuador," Health Financing and Sustainability (HFS)
Project, U.S. Agency for International Development, Washington,
1993.
Laspina, C. (Director de Medicina Preventiva, Ministerio de Salud
Publica), personal communication, 20 March 1995.
Lee, T., "Financing Investments in Water Supply and Sanitation,"
Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean,
Santiago, undated.
Margulis, S. "Back-of-the-Envelope Estimates of Environmental
Damage Costs in Mexico" (Working Paper 824), Latin American and
Caribbean Department, World Bank, Washington, 1992.
Martinez, A. (Director de Salud Publica, Higiene, y Medio
Ambiente, I. Municipio de Guayaquil), personal communication, 16
March 1995.
Mena, E. (Economista, Empresa Municipal de Agua Potable y
Alcantarillado de Quito), personal communication, 13 March 1995
Okun, D. "The Value of Water Supply and Sanitation in
Development: An Assessment" AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PUBLIC HEALTH
78:11 (1988) 1463-1467.
Rutstein, S., A. Fermo, and A. Crespo. "Child Survival in
Ecuador," U.S. Agency for International Development, Quito, 1987.
Southgate, D. and M. Whitaker. ECONOMIC PROGRESS AND THE
ENVIRONMENT: ONE DEVELOPING COUNTRY'S POLICY CRISIS." New York:
Oxford University Press, 1994.
Velasco, J. and J. Infante. "Increasing Coverage: The
Affordability of Urban Water and Sewer Service Extension in
Ecuador" (field report number 316), Water and Sanitation for
Health Project, Bureau for Research and Development, U.S. Agency
for International Development, Washington, 1990.
Yamashita, K. (Public Health and Family Planning Officer, U.S.
Agency for International Development), personal communication,
March 21, 1995.
AIR POLLUTION
by
Douglas Southgate, and Lori Lach
1. Economic Development and Emissions Sources
1.01 Although smog often increases as living standards rise and
industrialization occurs, development in many places has been
accompanied by the substitution of cleaner fuels, like natural
gas and hydroelectricity, for dirtier ones, like wood, charcoal,
and coal (Smith, 1988). Exactly this sort of substitution has
taken place in Ecuador, largely because prices for electricity
and petroleum have been artificially low since 1972, when the
country began to export oil. Fossil fuel subsidies peaked at 7
percent of GDP in 1980. But as late as 1988, prices charged for
electricity covered less than half the costs of production
(Southgate and Whitaker, 1994, p. 71). It is hardly surprising,
then, that fuelwood use has become rare in urban areas. Even
along agricultural frontiers, where timber is plentiful,
canisters containing liquified petroleum gas (LPG) are found in
many farm kitchens.
1.02 While energy subsidies might have diminished pollution by
stimulating a switch to cleaner forms of energy, they
simultaneously affected air quality for the worse by encouraging
energy-intensive industry and the use of motor vehicles. As is
mentioned in a companion report on industrial air and water
pollution (White with Southgate and Lach, 1995), several of the
most important manufacturing subsectors in Guayaquil and Quito,
such as food processing and textile and chemical production, rank
high in terms of ratios of energy consumption over value added.
1.03 Industry has expanded and contracted in concert with the
Ecuadorian business cycle. Meanwhile, the number of vehicles
registered in the country has increased year in and year out.
Growth was rapid even during the 1980s (Table 3.1), when the
national economy was racked by rising real interest rates,
falling international oil prices, and natural disasters.
Consumption of petroleum products increased even faster (Table
3.1), in spite of gradual reductions in subsidies. Evidently,
Ecuadorians were seeing fit to drive more, to purchase less fuel-
efficient cars, or both.
Table 3.1 Vehicles Registered and Fossil Fuel Consumption in
Ecuador during the 1980s
year vehicles average growth fuel consumption average growth
(% p.a.) (million gallons) (% p.a.)
1981 256,668 176
3.7 4.9
1985 297,269 214
4.2 5.2
1988 336,638 249
Source: Fundacion Natura (1992), p. 93
1.04 Motor vehicle numbers have continued to rise in the 1990s,
in part because economic expansion has resumed and also because
tariffs on imported cars and trucks have been cut. During the
1980s, duties reached 200 percent and there were import
prohibitions for certain types of vehicles. By 1995, tariffs on
private automobiles had fallen to 40 percent and duties on
private buses and heavy trucks amounted to just 10 percent.
There are no tariffs on vehicles imported from Colombia or
Venezuela or on buses used for public transportation. Between
1988 and 1993, the number of vehicles in the country rose by 5.8
percent per annum, reaching a total of 450,000.
2. Exposure to Air Pollution in Guayaquil and Quito
2.01 Air quality data are scarce in Ecuador, even in its largest
cities. In Guayaquil, for example, only one station where total
suspended particulates (TSPs) are monitored is working, the other
two facilities having closed in 1982 and 1986. TSP readings
obtained at the operating station in 1990 averaged 54.7 micro
g/m3 and ranged from 20.6 to 106 micro g/m3 (Fundacion Natura,
1992). These figures are within the World Health Organization
(WHO) standard, 60 to 90 micro g/m3, and also the U.S. norm, 75
micro g/m3. Information for other pollutants is less complete.
Jurado (1991), who has estimated that industry's average
contribution to ambient TSP concentrations is 25.2 micro g/m3,
has identified sulfer dioxide emissions as the most serious form
of pollution from industrial sources. His estimate of the
ambient concentration traced to manufacturing plants is 246.7
micro g/m3, which is above the WHO norm, 80 micro g/m3. The
sector's nitrous oxide emissions, like its TSP discharges,
constitute a less serious problem.
2.02 Focused exclusively on the manufacturing sector, Jurado's
(1991) study does not address vehicular pollution, which accounts
for most carbon monoxide, lead, and uncombusted hydrocarbons in
the air. In addition, there are neighborhoods with a lot of
industry where levels of sulfur dioxide, TSP, and other
pollutants are high. But in general, air quality in Guayaquil is
relatively good. For this, its residents can probably thank the
city's location on a coastal plain as much as any other factor.
2.03 In terms of air pollution risks, Quito is in a much less
favorable position. The national capital is situated in a narrow
mountain valley 2,800 m above sea level and temperature
inversions are common events. As manufacturing establishments
and motor vehicles have proliferated, air quality has
deteriorated.
2.04 There is no doubt that car, truck, and bus numbers in Quito
have skyrocketed in recent decades. Between 1962 and 1990,
registered vehicles increased by 10 percent a year (Varea, 1994).
That growth was approximately double the rate of population
increase and exceeded the rate of income growth by a wide margin.
In 1994, there were 140,000 vehicles in Quito, 134,000 of which
were powered by gasoline and the other 6,000 by diesel (Puga,
1994).
2.05 An important consequence of vehicle growth has been to slow
traffic on the capital city's major thoroughfares. It has been
determined, for example, that the average speed of buses on
"Avenida 10 de Agosto" is only 6 km/hour (Sevilla, 1995). Since
those vehicles start and stop frequently and since their engines
tend to be poorly maintained, they spew out large volumes of
uncombusted hydrocarbons and other pollutants.
2.06 Available data do not allow the air quality impacts of
increased emissions from fixed and mobile sources to be described
very precisely. In October 1994, the Inter-American Development
Bank (IDB) made US$1.8 million available for Quito's Red
Metropolitano de Monitoreo Atmosferico, to which the municipal
government is contributing US$235,000. Once in place, that
system will provide specific information regarding sources of
emissions as well as where concentrations of pollutants are
especially high. In the meantime, the best information on air
pollution is obtained through rapid assessments, such as one
carried out in 1993 to justify the IDB-financed monitoring
system.
2.07 Since the increase in automobile, bus, and truck numbers has
coincided with a decline in the quality of Quito's air, it is
widely believed that vehicular exhausts are the principle cause
of pollution in the city. The findings of the 1993 assessment
(Table 2), in which WHO guidelines were followed, suggest that
this view is only partially correct. Cars emit virtually all the
carbon monoxide, which in terms of tons per year is by far the
largest component of total emissions. Also, they account for all
the lead and most of the uncombusted hydrocarbons emitted.
However, factories and other fixed sources discharge most of the
TSP and sulfur dioxide and nearly half the nitrous oxide. Jurado
(1991) has estimated that 44 percent of the sulfur dioxide and 40
percent of the nitrous oxide emitted in Quito come from textile
and leather- working factories and that the food and beverage
industry discharges 37 percent of total sulfur dioxide and 35
percent of total nitrous oxide.
Table 3.2 Sources of Air Pollution in Quito (tons p.a.)
TSP sulfur nitrous carbon Lead uncombusted other
dioxide oxide monoxide hydrocarbons
vehicles fueled by:
- gasoline (134,000)
706 191 3,603 132,350 102 5,114 0
- diesel (6,000)
363 468 1,695 6,966 0 385 0
- fixed sources (600+)
7,170 18,707 5,023 915 0 3,233 617
total
8,239 19,366 10,321 140,231 102 8,732 617
Source: WHO-style rapid assessment conducted in 1993 and cited
in Puga (1994)
2.08 The rapid assessment also revealed that there are four areas
where annual discharges from mobile and fixed sources are
especially high: two industrial zones in northern Quito (with
combined emissions of 4,179 tons/year), the central historical
district (where buses, cars, and trucks discharge 2,511 tons
annually), and an industrial zone in southern Quito that accounts
for 10 percent of total pollution (18,662 tons/year). These
findings are generally consistent with data on TSP concentrations
collected at three permanent monitoring stations. In 1991,
readings at the central and southern facilities averaged 123.3
and 149.9 micro g/m3, respectively. Only at the northern station
did the average reading, 58.8 micro g/m3, not exceed either WHO
and U.S. norms (see above). There were seven occasions when TSP
concentrations at either the central or southern station rose
above 185 micro g/m3 (Arcia "et al"., 1993, pp. 60-61).
2.09 In response to a well-publicized report of elevated blood
lead levels among pregnant women, newborns, street vendors, and
other Quito residents (see next section), research has been
undertaken to identify areas where exposure rates are especially
high. In 1992, a study carried out by the Facultad de Geologia y
Minas of the Universidad Central del Ecuador and the Instituto
Ecuatoriano de Obras Sanitarias (IEOS) revealed that atmospheric
lead concentrations in the national capital averaged 0.67 micro
g/m3, but that levels in some places ("e.g.", in and around
traffic tunnels) were above 7.00 micro g/m3. Concentrations
appear to be lower in Guayaquil; in the later 1980s, average
readings in the port city were found to be 0.49 micro g/m3
(Fundacion Natura, 1993, p. 94). Ecuador has adopted the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency's (USEPA) ambient standard, 1.50
micro g/m3, which is ten times the European Union's norm, 0.15
micro g/m3.
2.10 As reports of TSP and lead concentrations in different parts
of Quito make clear, exposure to pollution varies markedly across
neighborhoods and population groups. One-fourth of national
capital's inhabitants lives within 100 m of heavily traveled
thoroughfares and 13 percent of the residents of marginal
neighborhoods classify themselves as informal vendors, who work
mainly on those same thoroughfares (Arcia "et al.", 1993, p. 61).
Without a doubt, these two segments of the population suffer more
than others because of dirty air.
3. Air Pollution's Effects on Human Health
3.01 Air pollution creates a number of harmful impacts. Acidic
precipitation, which is a product of sulfer dioxide emissions,
damages buildings and other infrastructure. If views of
snow-capped mountains and other sights are often obscured by a
smoky haze, foreign tourists might decide to take their business
elsewhere. But in a place like Ecuador, the most damaging
consequences of air pollution have to do with impaired human
health.
3.02 Inhalation of particulates, sulfur dioxide, and nitrous
oxide can create or aggravate respiratory illness. Since the
human respiratory system is size-selective, the effects
associated with particulates depends in part on their diameter.
Material less than 10 micro m in diameter is able to bypass the
nasal passages and cilia and continue toward the lungs. Very
fine particles, with a diameter less than 3 micro m, can
penetrate all the way to the alveoli (John, 1988), thereby
causing obstructions and irritations (Lu, 1991).
3.03 Because they are both byproducts of combustion, sulfur
dioxide and nitrous oxide are often mixed with particulate
emissions. Also, sulfur dioxide is very water-soluble and
therefore is easily absorbed by the nose and upper respiratory
tract, which can impair various respiratory functions (Lu, 1991).
Nitrous oxide is less soluble and therefore passes through the
lungs to the terminal bronchioles and alveoli, directly damaging
the lung epithelium and cells necessary for gas exchange.
Chronic exposure, at work for example, can lead to emphysema and
decreased resistance to bacteria and viruses (Lu, 1991; WHO,
1977).
3.04 Even if precise data on human exposure to various airborne
pollutants were available for Quito and Guayaquil, it would still
be a challenge to quantify the resulting respiratory illness. In
addition to actual exposures, synergism among pollutants and
varying susceptibilities of different parts of the population
would have to be taken into account.
3.05 Evidence concerning the importance of synergism is strong
(Jaakkola "et al"., 1991). Ericsson and Camner (1983) have
observed impaired respiratory function among children exposed to
annual means of 63 to 71 micro g/m3 of sulfur dioxide and 61 to
73 micro g/m3 of particulates (Ericsson and Camner, 1983).
Likewise, increased incidence of acute respiratory disease in
school children and parents was reported in a community with
annual means of 150 to 282 micro g/m3 of nitrite, less than 26
micro g/m3 of sulfur dioxide, and 63 to 96 micro g/m3 of
particulates compared to a control community with 56 to 113 micro
g/m3 of nitrite, less than 26 micro g/m3 sulfur dioxide and 62 to
72 micro g/m3 particulates (WHO, 1977). A possible explanation
for this finding is that more particulates may be successful in
penetrating deep into the lungs if nitrite compromises the
mucociliary clearing action of the air passages. It is important
to note that many of the concentrations reported by these
researchers are below the minimal levels at which exposure to an
individual pollutant has been demonstrated to be harmful and also
below estimated pollution levels in Ecuador's two largest cities.
3.06 Although more research is needed on the reactions of
children, the elderly, asthmatics, and other sensitive
populations to various sorts of airborne pollutants, it is clear
that many groups are much more susceptible than are healthy
adults, who are the subjects of most studies. Investigation of
asthmatic individuals, for example, showed that a significant
decrease in lung capacity was observed after just 10 minutes'
exposure to 70 micro g/m3 of sulfur dioxide (Ericcson and Camner,
1983). That level is well below the minimum short-term exposure
level, 250 micro g/m3, at which an adverse response has been
reported for adults without asthma (WHO, 1979).
3.07 In Ecuador, various causes of respiratory illness are at
work. Crowding, poverty, and malnutrition are common and many
people must make do without adequate shelter and clothing. Quite
possibly, concentrations of TSP, sulfur dioxide, and nitrous
oxide that would not be considered very harmful in an affluent
country may be causing significant damage in the poor
neighborhoods of Quito, Guayaquil, and other places. Because of
chronic under-reporting of morbidity and even mortality to public
health agencies (Frederick with Southgate and Lach, 1995),
available data do not accurately reflect the true magnitude of
ill health. Nevertheless, the large numbers of hospitalizations
and deaths officially attributed to respiratory illness, which
are reported in Table 3.3, suggest that poor health caused in
part by air pollution is taking a serious toll.
Table 3.3 Hospitalization and Mortality Rates by Province
1992 Hospitalization Rate 1993 Urban Mortality Rate
(per 10,000 inhabitants) (per 10,000 inhabitants)
Pichincha Guayas El Oro Pichincha Guayas El Oro
- upper respiratory illness
7.81 8.03 6.30 0.10 0.04 0.03
- other respiratory illness
17.53 14.89 21.43 5.65 5.05 3.78
Source: INEC (1992) for hospitalization numbers; INEC (1993) for
mortality data; CEPAR (1993) for population
3.08 By no means are TSP, sulfur dioxide, and nitrous oxide the
only air pollutants that jeopardize human health in Ecuador.
Although it is considered less hazardous than other pollutants
(Bartone "et al.", 1994), carbon monoxide affects the
cardiovascular system, causing decreased oxygen transport and
cardiovascular damage. Also, uncombusted hydrocarbons are a
source of concern.
3.09 No pollutant seems to have aroused more alarm in Quito than
lead. In 1991, Fundacion Natura, the country's leading
environmental organization sponsored a study of 83 women
undergoing normal pregnancies, 15 pre-eclamptics ("i.e.",
pregnant women with high blood pressure, protein in the urine,
and abnormal weight gain), and 31 of their newborn babies. Blood
lead levels were found to range from 15 to 23 micro g/dl, which
is higher than the 10 micro g/dl U.S. Centers for Disease Control
(CDC) criterion for additional testing of children. In addition,
levels for 26 children in the center of Quito and 38 children in
peripheral areas were found to average 28.7 and 28.9 micro g/dl,
respectively. In another component of the same study, 17 male
and 59 female street vendors from central Quito, where traffic is
especially heavy, were examined. On average, members of this
second sample had worked in the area for 9 to 10 hours a day for
15 years and their blood lead levels were found to range from 26
to 30 micro g/dl, which is below the 40 micro g/dl CDC standard
for additional testing of adults (Oviedo, 1991).
3.10 These readings are, indeed, disturbing. Lead, it must be
emphasized is a potent central nervous system poison and also has
adverse impacts on the cardiovascular system. An increase of 1
micro g/m3 in ambient lead concentrations is known to increase
blood lead levels by 3 micro g/dl (Margulis, 1992) and levels of
just 10 micro g/dl are associated with decreased intelligence,
hearing ability, and growth in children. Blood lead levels of as
little as 12 micro g/dl may cause hypertension in adults. Higher
concentrations lead to decreased vitamin D metabolism, decreased
hemoglobin synthesis, infertility, anemia, and even death (Bahr,
1993).
4. Economic Evaluation of the Health Impacts of Air Pollution
4.01 Complicated linkages between morbidity and mortality and
their various causes make evaluation of air pollution's health
impacts difficult. Romieu, Weitzenfeld, and Finkelman (1990)
have used dose- response relationships reported in the literature
to estimate excess mortality, chronic coughs in children,
respiratory restricted activity days (RAD), and chronic
bronchitis among the elderly resulting from the excessive TSP
levels to which 81 million Latin American urban dwellers are
exposed. Margulis (1992) has carried out a similar sort of
analysis in Mexico City and has combined his findings with
information on wages and treatment costs to evaluate morbidity
and mortality in economic terms.
4.02 Evaluation of the health impacts of poor air quality is
particularly important in highland Ecuador, where pneumonia, one
manifestation of lower respiratory infection, is the second
leading cause of death across all age groups behind
cardiovascular illnesses (INEC, 1993). Arcia "et al." (1993, p.
63) have used the three equations that follow to estimate RAD,
work days lost (WDL), and excess mortality (MORT) resulting each
year in Quito because TSP levels exceed the U.S. standard of 75
micro g/m3 in most of the city.
RAD = 0.00282 x 26 x [(TSP level - 75) x exposed population]
WDL = 0.00145 x 26 x [(TSP level - 75) x exposed population]
MORT = 0.00002 x [(TSP level - 75) x exposed population]
4.03 Assuming that the city's population, approximately 1,140,000
in 1990, was divided equally among its southern, central, and
northern districts, we estimated RAD, WDL, and MORT in southern
and central Quito for the average readings in 1991: 149.9 and
123.3 micro g/m3, respectively (see above). The results are
reported in Table 3.4. To evaluate time lost from work as well
as reduced productivity, WDL and RAD were multiplied by the
prevailing wage rate (approximately US$6/day) and half the daily
wage, respectively. Expenditures on medical services and
pharmaceutical products were also taken into account. It was
assumed that a single visit to the doctor, which costs US$12
counting medication expenditures, resulted from every ten WDL or
RAD cases (Yamashita, 1995). The costs reported in the second
and fourth lines of Table 3.4, then, equal RAD multiplied by
US$4.20 (half the daily wage plus 0.10 times the average cost of
medical treatment) and WDL multiplied by US$7.2 (the daily wage
plus 0.10 times the average cost of medical treatment),
respectively.
Table 3.4 Selected Costs of RAD, WDL, and Increased Mortality
Associated with Elevated TSP Levels in Central and Southern Quito
central southern total
yearly reduced activity days
1,346,000 2,087,000 3,433,000
yearly RAD costs
US$5,653,200 US$8,765,400 US$14,418,600
yearly work days lost
692,000 1,073,000 1,765,000
yearly WDL costs
US$4,982,400 US$7,725,600 US$12,708,000
yearly excess mortality
37 57 94
yearly MORT costs
US$624,819 US$962,559 US$1,587,378
4.04 Comprehensive evaluation of the economic losses associated
with excess mortality, which would require analysis of
expenditures on medical treatment and the physical and emotional
distress suffered by the deceased and loved ones, was not
attempted for this study. However, the present value of income
lost due to premature demise was estimated. It was assumed that,
on average, mortal victims of excessive TSP concentrations could
otherwise have expected to earn US$6 a day working 5 days a week,
50 weeks a year, for 30 more years. At a discount rate of 10
percent, the present value of income not earned by that person
would have been:
30
Sum (US$6 x 5 x 50) x (1.08)-t = US$16,887.
t=1
This figure, which is 23 percent of the per-death cost Margulis
(1992) used to evaluate excessive mortality induced by air
pollution in Mexico City, was multiplied by MORT to obtained the
costs reported in the sixth line of Table 3.4.
4.05 In Guayaquil, available data and studies indicate that TSP
concentrations are not excessive relative to international norms,
although particulates are undoubtedly contributing to a certain
amount of sickness (see preceding section). By contrast, sulfur
dioxide levels in the port city are much higher than they should
be.
4.06 Ostro (1994) has investigated the morbidity and mortality
that result when atmospheric concentrations of sulfur dioxide
exceed international norms. Referring to his research and also
to Jurado's (1991) estimates of emissions from industrial sources
in Guayaquil (see above), we have estimated three health impacts.
increase in premature mortality:
0.048 x (246.7 - 80) = 8.00 percent
increase in respiratory symptoms among children:
0.018 x (246.7 - 80) = 3.00 percent
increase in chest discomfort among adults:
0.010 x (246.7 - 80) = 1.67 percent
4.07 No attempt was made to evaluate the latter two categories of
morbidity. In 1993, 975 people were reported to have died
because of upper or lower respiratory infections (INEC, 1993).
An estimate of the present value of additional income that would
have been earned had that number been reduced by 8 percent is
US$1,317,186, which equals 78 (8 percent of 975) multiplied by
US$16,887.
4.08 Finally, we have estimated the costs of identifying,
treating, and educating children exposed to lead in Quito. As
Margulis (1992) did in his study of pollution damages in Mexico
City, we supposed that one-half the 290,000 children under the
age of ten in the Ecuadorian capital would have to be screened,
10 percent of the screened group would require follow-up EDTA
testing (which generally involves a hospital stay and three
follow-up visits), and that 2 percent of the same group would
require chelation therapy and compensatory education. A
conservative assumption was made that costs for screening
(US$5/case), EDTA testing (US$30/case), and chelation therapy
(US$110/case) were equal to approximately one-thirtieth of the
costs for the same services in the United States (Yamashita,
1995). The resulting estimate of annual screening, testing, and
treatment costs was US$1,479,000. Margulis (1992) found that 3
years of special education, costing US$153/year, would be needed
for each child with blood lead levels high enough ("i.e.", 40
micro g/dl or above) to impair intelligence. Assuming that half
the children requiring chelation therapy would fell into this
category, we estimated that the cost involved would be
US$1,331,100.
4.09 Along with the US$2,810,100 needed to helping children with
elevated blood lead levels, the costs adults incur because their
exposure to the same pollutant results in hypertension and
myocardial infarctions should be taken into account. Although
Margulis (1992) investigated these impacts in Mexico City, we
concluded that currently available data do not allow for similar
analysis in Quito.
5. Strategies for Controlling Air Pollution
5.01 The problem facing policy makers intent on improving air
quality can be put in the context of a model of the benefits and
costs of pollution abatement that is found in any environmental
economics textbook.
5.02 In general, the marginal costs of abatement ("i.e.", the
economic sacrifices required for a small improvement in
environmental quality) increase along with the level of pollution
control. It is typical, for example, for marginal costs to be
extremely high as complete abatement ("i.e.", zero pollution) is
approached. By contrast, initial marginal costs can actually be
negative, as is depicted in Figure 3.5. This happens to be the
case in Ecuador. As is explained in the companion report on
industrial pollution (White with Southgate and Lach, 1995),
manufacturing enterprises that adopted energy-intensive
technology when energy was highly subsidized are now finding that
profits can be enhanced by adopting production technology that
saves energy and also reduces emissions.
5.03 Between the extremes of negative marginal costs
(corresponding to abatement measures that benefit polluters) and
high positive marginal costs (which must be paid in order to rid
the air entirely of pollutants), a fairly broad range of positive
but low marginal costs is usually encountered. For example, it
has been found that poorly maintained motor vehicles account for
as much as 50 percent of total emissions in Los Angeles, the
United Kingdom, and other places (Anonymous, 1994). Since most
of those vehicles are old and of low value, their removal from
the scene would not be prohibitively expensive.
Figure 3.5 The Benefits and Costs of Pollution Abatement
(Graphics do not transfer on to the internet. Please contact the
author to obtain a copy.)
5.04 The marginal benefits of pollution abatement, which are also
depicted in Figure 3.5, tend to fall as environmental quality
improves. Starting from the point of zero abatement, even a
small reduction in emissions is likely to have a positive impact
on human health, which can be worth quite a lot. But as complete
abatement is approached, marginal benefits grow small, comprising
minor aesthetic values for the most part.
5.05 Finding the efficient abatement level, at which marginal
benefits just equal marginal costs, is a challenge since it is
rarely possible to plot out the two functions represented in
Figure 3.5 with a great deal of precision. [Estimation of the
marginal benefits curve is particularly difficult.] However, the
immediate problem in Ecuadorian cities, where little has been
done in the past to improve air quality, is more straightforward.
The benefits resulting from diminished morbidity, mortality, and
treatment are large (see above). As long as there are
opportunities to reduce pollution at a marginal cost that is
either negative or positive and small, increased abatement, which
is represented by a rightward movement along Figure 3.5's
horizontal axis, will be efficient.
5.06 Initiatives undertaken by the City of Quito and Corporacion
OIKOS, with support from USAID's EP3 Project, represent an
attempt to capture the health and other benefits associated with
diminished industrial discharges of TSP, sulfur dioxide, and
other pollutants at a negative cost. These initiatives are
described and evaluated in the industrial pollution report.
5.07 If the owners and operators of factories and motor vehicles
are left to their own devices, overall pollution will approach
the level at which the marginal costs of abatement equal zero.
This privately optimal outcome, which is illustrated in Figure
3.5, is socially efficient only if the marginal benefits of
abatement are less than or equal to zero. But if marginal
benefits are positive, net social benefits are enhanced by moving
to a higher level of pollution control, increasing abatement as
long as marginal benefits exceed marginal costs.
5.08 Almost surely, the positive marginal costs of reducing
emissions from trucks and buses are outweighed by the marginal
benefits of same. This is the implicit economic rationale for
Municipal Ordinance 3120, which went into effect on 2 January
1995 and which targets large vehicles. As is reported in Table
3.2, the city's 6,000 diesel-fueled trucks and buses produce a
disproportionate share of various pollutants discharged from
mobile sources. This means that dealing with that subset of the
capital city's motor vehicle fleet is bound to yield
disproportionate human health and other benefits.
5.09 The new ordinance stipulates that heavily polluting buses
and trucks are to be identified by using a device that measures
exhaust opacity. Owners of vehicles with exhausts that do not
meet the norm set forth in the ordinance, which is based on
Brazilian and Italian standards, are subject to a fine equal to
five minimum monthly salaries. Currently, that fine is worth
US$160. In addition, violators face a 375,000 sucre fine (equal
to US$155 at current exchange rates) and must post a "guarantia"
of 1,125,000 sucres (US$465), which is approximately double the
cost of making the repairs needed to bring an engine up to
standard.
5.10 Quite intense in January, enforcement of the ordinance
lapsed somewhat in February due to the disruptions that
accompanied a border conflict with Peru. All told, nearly
US$100,000 in fines, including those assessed on vehicles with
damaged or absent exhaust pipes, were collected between 2 January
and 3 March 1995. Future enforcement is expected to be
accomplished at least in part through contracts between the
municipal government and private entities, which would keep half
the fines they collect (Gomez, 1995; Sevilla, 1995).
5.11 In order to comply with the new norms for exhaust opacity,
vehicle owners will have to be much more careful about vehicle
maintenance. However, they are not the only parties who will
have to change their behavior. Mechanics will have to tune truck
and bus engines properly, which might require some training in
some cases and the current practice of replacing worn-out engines
with used and rebuilt units will have to be reassessed.
5.12 Also, quality control will have to improve at refineries and
it might be necessary to switch to the production of a higher
grade of diesel fuel. Without a doubt, better management of the
multipurpose pipelines that connect the Esmeraldas and
Shushufindi refineries with the central fuel distribution center
at Santo Domingo will be required. Otherwise, mixing of leaded
and unleaded gasolines and diesel fuels will continue to be
routine. In addition, vigilance will be needed to prevent fuel
haulers and retail dealers from adulterating the final product
with kerosene (which is sold at an artificially low price),
water, and other materials.
5.13 Once emissions from industrial facilities and diesel-fueled
vehicles have been reduced, other measures need to be explored.
For example, converting truck and bus engines so that they can
run on natural gas merits investigation. One difficulty with
conversion is that the long- standing policy of subsidizing LPG
would become more difficult to sustain. Changing that policy
might involve environmental costs since, all else remaining the
same, fuelwood use would increase. These costs would have to be
taken into account in a complete economic analysis of engine
conversion, which has not yet been undertaken in Ecuador.
5.14 Finally, it should be recognized that some measures to
control air pollution are likely to be very expensive.
Increasing the production of unleaded gasoline is a case in
point. In 1993, ICF Resources, a U.S. consulting firm, completed
a detailed study of Ecuador's refinery system. In a public
briefing held in Houston in June of that year, the company
reported that a major investment would be required to produce
unleaded gasoline at the Esmeraldas refinery. To be specific,
US$490 million (in 1991 dollars) would have to be invested in a
new delayed coker, a fluid cat cracker, and other equipment from
1994 through 2004. In addition, operating costs would increase
because octane-enhancers that do not contain lead ("e.g.",
methyl-ter-butyl ether) are considerably more expensive than what
is currently being used at Esmeraldas.
5.15 Considerably less investment would be required if a partial,
as opposed to a full, conversion were made to lead-free gasoline.
However, the viability of this alternative depends on improving
pipeline management (see above), installing separate tanks at
service stations, and related measures for avoiding adulteration
of unleaded fuels. Another option would be for Ecuador to export
all leaded gasoline produced at Esmeraldas and its other
refineries and to import lead-free fuels. However, this is bound
to grow more difficult over time as global demand for the former
declines. Eventually, production of leaded gasoline might well
have to be phased out entirely in the country, both because of
health concerns and also because newer cars cannot run on that
fuel.
6. The Political Economy of Air Pollution Control in Ecuador
6.01 Improvements in environmental quality, it must be conceded,
sometimes have universal support. As is discussed in the
companion report on industrial pollution, there is a large number
of manufacturing establishments in Ecuador that installed
wasteful technology when energy and water were subsidized and
that now find it economical to invest in cleaner and more
efficient production processes (White with Southgate and Lach,
1995).
6.02 Many more environmental quality improvements, however,
involve positive costs, and so are bound to arouse opposition
from polluters, taxpayers called upon to subsidize pollution
control, or other economic agents. If the marginal costs of
pollution abatement exceed the marginal benefits of same, then
economic efficiency is served best by the opponents of
improvement. [This does not mean, of course, that efficient
pollution should not be taxed.] Complete elimination of lead
might be a case in point.
6.03 By no means does successful opposition to pollution
abatement demonstrate that the benefits involved are less than
the costs. Instead, what often happens is that organizing an
effective coalition of opponents, each of whom will have to pay a
high cost if the abatement measure is adopted, proves easier than
organizing a coalition of proponents, comprising a large number
of individuals who each stand to capture a small benefit.
Current policy initiatives to control emissions from
diesel-fueled vehicles in Quito could be undermined because of
this skewed distribution of costs and benefits.
6.04 There is little doubt that many of the owners and operators
of buses and trucks could suffer sizable financial losses because
of those controls. Acting on this interest, they blocked Quito's
principal traffic arteries in late 1994 to protest the municipal
law that was superseded by Ordinance 3120. Their actions should
be regarded as a precursor to the stronger opposition that will
greet more stringent measures to reduce emissions from their
vehicles.
6.05 If the per capita benefits of improved air quality are so
small that few individuals find it worth their while to
participate in organized support of pollution controls, then
organized opposition to those controls might not be overcome.
However, Dixon (1993) suggests a reason why this inefficient
outcome might not prevail. He points out that individual
avoidance of the damages associated with air pollution is
impractical for most households. This means that, where
pollution is severe, as it is in central and southern Quito for
example, each household suffers significant costs, in terms of
increased respiratory diseases, exposure to lead, and so forth.
Provided those costs exceed the expense and trouble for a
household of participating in a political initiative to implement
pollution controls, it is quite possible that the coalition
needed to improve environmental quality will be organized.
6.06 Inefficiencies often arise because abatement costs are
concentrated and environmental improvement benefits are diffuse.
However, it is also possible for inefficient air pollution
controls to be adopted because the benefits of improved air
quality are, as Dixon (1993) points out, non- rivalrous.
Affluent households tend to insulate themselves, by boiling water
and adopting other low-cost measures, from the impacts of
contaminated water supplies. By contrast, their options for
avoiding airborne pollutants are much more limited, air
conditioning being much more expensive and often not very
effective. Under these circumstances, reducing air pollution
might be more important than improving water quality (or doing
something else that tends to benefit less affluent households) as
far as they are concerned. If the wealthy choose to exercise
their political influence consistent with their interests, there
is a chance that air pollution controls might be given higher
priority than measures featuring higher net social benefits.
6.07 Once all opportunities for "win-win" pollution abatement, in
which polluters themselves find it beneficial to reduce
emissions, have been exploited, effective and efficient
policy-making will require more than a comparison of aggregate
benefits and costs. As the case of emissions from diesel-fueled
vehicles makes clear, the likelihood that coalitions of polluters
will try to block efficient pollution control merits needs to be
taken into account. Likewise, the possibility that abatement
measures that create more costs than benefits will be adopted
because they are favored by wealthy and influential groups merits
investigation.
7. References
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1994, 91- 93.
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March 1995.
INDUSTRIAL POLLUTION
by
Allen White, with Douglas Southgate, and Lori Lach
1. Introduction
1.01 In Ecuador, as in all rapidly urbanizing countries,
industrial pollution represents a major threat to environmental
quality, one that has to be met through improved management and
technological change. Designing and implementing effective
policies to diminish emissions from manufacturing plants is
essential if the quality of life is not to deteriorate in the
country's major cities.
1.02 It is not by chance, of course, that industrial pollution is
largely an urban phenomenon. As a rule, manufacturers prefer to
locate where skilled labor, dependable transportation, and
reliable supplies of water and electricity are most readily
available. Also, being in a large urban market hold obvious
attractions. So it is that approximately 70 percent of Ecuador's
industrial establishments are in Pichincha and Guayas provinces
(Hoffman Jurado Sandoval, 1992). Those two provinces account for
83 percent of total value-added in manufacturing outside of
petroleum extraction and refining (INEC, 1992).
1.03 Many of the industrial plants in Quito and Guayaquil rank
high on the scale used by the World Bank to rate toxic intensity:
the Industrial Pollution Projection System, or IPPS (Wheeler "et
al.", 1991), which is similar to the International Uniform
Industrial Classification System used by Ecuador's Instituto
Nacional de Estadisticas y Censos (INEC). The second and third
leading industries in Guayas province, chemical and plastic
manufacturing and pulp and paper production, fall within the top
dozen IPPS sectors. Likewise, two of Quito's leading industries,
tanneries and leather-working and textiles, rank among the top
seven of 37 for which IPPS ratings have been developed.
Industries in the southern part of the national capital are the
source of most of the district's sulfur dioxide and particulate
emissions as well as 30 percent of total discharges into the
Machangara River (I. Municipio de Quito, 1994).
1.04 Other burdens on the urban environment are associated with
intensive energy and water use. In terms of energy consumption
per dollar of value added (U.S. Department of Energy, 1991; U.S.
Department of Commerce, 1991), food processing (which is
Guayaquil's leading industrial sector by far), textiles, and
chemicals all rank well above the average for manufacturing as a
whole. Having enjoyed large energy subsidies since the early
1970s, these same industries sometimes respond to higher fuel and
electricity prices with protests and lobbying. Likewise,
subsectors that use water intensively, including pulp and paper,
textiles, and chemicals (Gleick, 1993), have complained about
diminished water subsidies. Of late, industry is reacting to
higher prices by trying to conserve energy and water. For
example, tanning and textile enterprises are much more interested
than they used to be in the recovery and reuse of process waters.
As is discussed later in this report, various policy initiatives
aimed at diminishing industrial emissions are being pursued as
well. If successful, these initiatives should have a beneficial
impact on human health.
2. Health Impacts of Urban Industrial Pollution
2.01 People are exposed to industrial pollutants in various ways.
Within a factory, workers are put at risk when equipment
maintenance is deficient, obsolete technology is used, or
hazardous materials are handled without proper precautions.
Surrounding neighborhoods as well as downstream and downwind
populations are affected when pollutants are released into the
air or water or dumped onto land.
2.02 Exposure can be difficult to characterize and quantify.
Similarly, determining the ultimate effects of chemical exposure
on human health is usually problematical. This is especially
true when there are multiple causes of morbidity and mortality.
For example, any estimate of cancer resulting from the release of
a hazardous industrial chemical must take into account the
impacts of smoking, diet, and other variables.
2.03 That being said, it is undeniable that human exposure to
several important pollutants in Quito and Guayaquil can be traced
to industrial sources. A companion report on air pollution
(Southgate and Lach, 1995) documents that industry is the primary
source of sulfur dioxide emissions in both cities. Likewise,
concentrations of total suspended particulates (TSP) exceed
international standards in Quito, mainly because of manufacturing
activity. As a result, the incidence of respiratory disease is
high. Industry also contributes 49 percent of nitrous oxide
emissions as well as nearly two-fifths of the uncombusted
hydrocarbons suspended in the capital city's airshed.
2.04 Manufacturing enterprises also are an important source of
heavy metal contamination. Studies carried out in southern Quito
under the auspices of the Programa de Evaluacion de la
Contaminacion Industrial en el Sur (PECIS) revealed that textile
and leather plants accounted for most cobalt, zinc, and nickel
discharges and that most chromium and large amounts of cobalt,
copper, and zinc are emitted by metal-working establishments and
machinery and equipment manufacturers (I. Municipio de Quito,
1994).
2.05 Without a doubt, those industries' employees are most at
risk. Inhaling chromium causes lung cancer and occupational
exposure to nickel is known to be carcinogenic. In addition,
large doses of copper can lead to acute oral poisoning, excessive
ingestion can cause gastrointestinal distress, and occupational
exposure to cobalt induces respiratory irritation (Lu, 1991).
Other people are exposed to dangerous amounts of heavy metals
when there are discharges into streams that are the source of
drinking or irrigation water. Estimation of this latter sort
exposure tends to be imprecise.
2.06 Organic solvents, commonly used as cleaning and degreasing
agents and as inputs in a wide range of industries, are another
source of health risk, particularly for industrial employees.
Acetone, benzene, toluene, phenol, and chloroform are among the
solvents used by Ecuadorian leather and textile manufacturers and
the country's chemical industry (Fundacion Natura, 1992).
Inhalation of these materials can depress the central nervous
system and prolonged exposure can lead to paralysis, convulsion,
and even death. Several chlorinated hydrocarbons are known to
produce liver tumors and lesions and may also be damaging to
kidneys. Benzene, a volatile organic hydrocarbon, causes
leukemia as well as decreases in blood cell production and the
number of blood cells in circulation (Lu, 1991).
2.07 Data required to evaluate the sickness and death resulting
from occupational and environmental exposure to hazardous metal
and chemical inputs used in manufacturing and industrial
emissions do not exist in Ecuador. The two most common forms of
cancer in the country are of the digestive tract and abdominal
cavity and genitourinary tract. In 1993, 399 urban residents of
Pichincha province and 512 inhabitants of Guayaquil and other
cities in Guayas province died of the former; deaths attributed
to genitourinary cancer amounted to 183 and 328 the same year in
urban Pichincha and urban Guayas, respectively (INEC, 1993).
While some of this mortality might relate to exposure to
hazardous metals and chemicals, it should be remembered that
stomach cancers also result from stress-related ulcers and a diet
high in recycled cooking oil; cancers of the genitourinary tract
can be caused by poor hygiene and sexual activity. Obviously,
lung and other sorts of cancer are linked to smoking.
2.08 The air pollution report mentioned above contains an
estimate of the costs incurred in central and southern Quito
because elevated TSP concentrations increase the incidence of
respiratory illness: US$37.4 million per annum (Southgate and
Lach, 1995). Since 87 percent of that pollution is contributed
by fixed sources, the annual costs of TSP emissions attributable
to industry amount to US$32.5 million. Other sorts of pollution
create appreciable costs as well. In all likelihood, control of
industrial emissions would create tens of millions of dollars in
annual economic benefits for the citizens of Quito, Guayaquil,
and other Ecuadorian cities.
3. Regulating Industrial Pollution
3.01 For more than 20 years, regulation has been the principal
response of national and local governments in Ecuador to air and
water pollution from industrial sources. Establishment of the
legal and institutional framework for regulation began with
adoption of the Health Code, in 1971. Article 28 of that law
obliged factories to seek permission for pretreatment prior to
discharge into any sewer system. In 1972, the Water Law was
passed, which resulted in the creation of the Instituto
Ecuatoriano de Recursos Hidraulicos (INERHI). In collaboration
with the Ministerio de Salud Publica (MSP), the new agency was
made responsible for enforcement of Article 28.
3.02 The scope of regulation was broadened in 1976. The Law for
the Prevention and Control of Environmental Contamination went
into effect with the issue of Supreme Decree Number 374. An
inter-ministerial commission was founded to coordinate policy and
regulatory development, including the preparation of specific
emissions standards. INERHI retained responsibility for setting
freshwater quality standards and the Direccion General de la
Marina Mercante (DIGMER) was assigned to protect coastal waters
and navigable rivers. The Instituto Ecuatoriano de Obras
Sanitarias (IEOS) was charged with developing standards for
drinking water, wastewater, air, noise, and solid waste, and with
training the inspectors needed to enforce those standards.
3.03 From industry's perspective, two features of the 1976 law
are particularly noteworthy. First, an environmental impact
report must be submitted to the MSP for any project that might
result in pollution. Second, violations of emission standards
are punishable by up to three years of imprisonment and a fine of
up to 50,000 sucres (worth US$2,000 in the middle 1970s, but now
less than US$25), depending upon the severity of the violation.
3.04 Despite the establishment of an institutional framework and
the assignment of responsibilities for the setting and
enforcement of standards, 13 years were to elapse before specific
standards would be promulgated. Other than to make possible some
sporadic efforts by various local governments to require
polluters to characterize wastewaters and to report on treatment
(Santana, 1989; Fundacion Natura, 1993), the 1976 law has had
little effect.
3.05 In 1989, a new Regulation for the Prevention and Control of
Pollution of Water Resources was adopted. A technical
commission, in which IEOS, INERHI, and DIGMER were represented,
was established and standards were set for industrial,
agricultural, and six other water uses. Treatment standards for
discharges from industry and public systems were to be enforced
by IEOS.
3.06 The 1989 regulation requires each polluter to submit a plan
to IEOS comprising three parts: (1) characterization of
wastewater, production processes, existing control and treatment,
current and anticipated production levels, and receiving water
bodies as well as development of a plan for meeting standards;
(2) implementation of treatment procedures; and (3) compliance
monitoring. The MSP grants a provisional discharge permit upon
completion of necessary treatment studies and a final permit once
water quality standards have been met. The 1989 regulation also
provides for periodic inspections by IEOS, INERHI, and DIGMER as
well as sanctions for noncompliance, including plant closure and
fines consistent with the 1976 Law. Plants can be relocated if
it is impossible to comply with discharge standards. In
addition, discharge fees, based on volume, biological oxygen
demand (BOD), toxic content, and other factors, can be assessed.
3.07 After six years, this most recent regulatory initiative at
the national level has had a minimal impact on industrial
discharges. The Centro de Investigaciones Universitarias de la
Universidad Laica reports that, of the nearly 300 industrial
plants in Guayaquil, only 27 have bothered to apply for
provisional discharge permits and that in no case have standards
actually been met (El Puerto, 1994). Poor enforcement is
attributed to the limitations of responsible agencies, an unaware
citizenry, and even outright bribery. Industry representatives
have complained that regulators are biased against certain
sectors, like food processing, and in favor of others, like
government-owned facilities (Fundacion Natura, 1993).
3.08 Though their impacts have been minimal, water pollution
regulations have been more effective than regulatory controls on
air pollution. Guayaquil's experience with La Cemento Nacional,
Ecuador's leading concrete producer, is a case in point. For
half a century, that enterprise has been a major source of TSP in
the city. However, the most that has been done to date has been
a call by the Mayor to carry out an environmental audit (Hoy,
1994).
3.09 With national regulatory initiatives having failed to yield
major improvements in environmental quality, a few local
governments have decided to act on their own, as the national Law
of Municipalities allows. Cuenca, a medium-sized city in
southern Ecuador, is doing so with financial assistance from the
Inter-American Development Bank (IDB). In 1992, Quito's
municipal government assumed responsibility for water and air
pollution within its jurisdiction by passing Ordinance 2910
("Prevention and Control of Water and Air Pollution").
3.10 Although it parallels the 1989 regulation, the local
ordinance is distinctive in several important ways. First, air
quality standards are written directly into the latter, with
limits established for seven pollutants from fixed and mobile
sources: settled particulates (expressed in mg/cm2), TSP, sulfur
dioxide, carbon monoxide, ozone, nitrous oxide, and lead.
Second, the local ordinance spells out a procedure for
registering facilities and submitting compliance plans. [In
practice, the maximum time period allowed to bring any given
facility into compliance -- one year -- has proven to be too
short and is currently under revision.] Third, a literal reading
of the ordinance suggests that sanctions for noncompliance are
strict and aggressive. For example, a plant can lose its
operating permit if it exceeds discharge standards and can be
relocated if there is insufficient space for treatment
infrastructure. Monetary penalties are not mentioned, but
presumably those contained in the 1989 regulation remain
applicable. Three years after enactment of Ordinance 2910,
business and the municipal government have come to agree that the
role of incentives for compliance (including tax allowances and
low-cost financing for pollution control infrastructure) as well
as penalties for noncompliance merit immediate attention (Lozano,
1995).
3.11 It is fair to say that considerable progress has been made
toward establishing the basis for effective regulation of
industrial pollution in Quito. In a pilot project, in-depth
assessments of 30 enterprises in the city's southern
manufacturing district amount to informal materials balance
studies that allow the municipal government to determine sources,
volumes, and hazards of pollution for the entire zone. But even
in the national capital, which has the most capable city
government and many of the most advanced manufacturing plants in
Ecuador, implementation of local controls on air and water
pollution has been hampered by limited budgets, shortages of
qualified personnel, and scarce laboratory capacity. As a
result, compliance with Ordinance 2910 has been less than
complete. No more than half of the medium-sized industrial
facilities and 70 percent of the small plants that should
register have actually done so; approximately 10 percent of the
city's large factories have failed to register (Gomez, 1995;
CAAM, 1995). Noncompliance with allowable emissions standards
also is substantial. Based on a sample of industries in the
southern industrial district of Quito, noncompliance rates are as
follows: 29 percent for metals, 33 percent for sediments, 50
percent for BOD, 92 percent for suspended solids, and 100 percent
for chemical oxygen demand (COD). Data for combustion units tell
a similar story: 64 percent noncompliance for ovens, 89 percent
for diesel boilers, 94 percent for bunker-fueled boilers, and 100
percent for wood- fired boilers and incinerators (I. Municipio de
Quito, 1994).
3.12 Disappointing as these noncompliance rates might be, they
still compare favorably with what regulators at the national
level have been able to accomplish since the 1970s. It is
possible that the transfer, in August 1994, of various
responsibilities from IEOS, which has been disbanded, to the new
Ministerio de Desarrollo Urbano y Vivienda (MINDUVI) might lead
to the development and implementation of effective and viable
policies for the control of industrial pollution. Certainly,
this is desirable, if for no other reason than to prevent a few
local governments from competing for private investment on the
basis of lax environmental standards.
4. Beyond Regulation: Accelerating the Adoption of Cleaner
Technologies
4.01 Although there is some degree of confusion on the subject,
there seem to be at least 30 national laws governing the
management of water resources (CAAM, 1995). The number of laws
that potentially apply to air pollution and other environmental
problems also is high. As has been recognized at the highest
levels in Ecuador (CAAM, 1993) and in other countries (White,
1991), the mere existence and lack of codification of so many
legal arrangements, none of which comes close to being fully
enforced, gives rise to both confusion and, more importantly, a
loss of credibility in government's ability to consistently and
fairly manage Ecuador's industrial pollution.
4.02 There is an alternative to the "command and control"
approach that has become entrenched in the United States and
other countries but has failed to take root so far in Ecuador.
The alternative consists of working closely with private industry
through voluntary partnerships and programs to identify
cost-effective pollution prevention (P2) measures. This
approach, which involves assessments of the use of energy and
chemicals to identify waste prevention opportunities, has been
applied successfully by Quito's municipal government in a pilot
program carried out in an industrial district, El Inca.
4.03 What P2 involves is illustrated by the case of an enterprise
in Guayaquil that manufactures non-ferrous metal products and
ceramics. During the last two years, it has invested
approximately US$1.5 million to upgrade burners, replace pumps,
recover salable byproducts from tile cuttings, and switch to
chemical additives that are environmentally preferable according
to the U.S. vendor. These innovations, which reduced energy
consumption as well as the volume and toxicity of process
wastewaters, had nothing to do environmental regulations,
subsidies, or tax breaks. Neither were they motivated primarily
by the environmental consciousness shared by some members of the
professional and managerial staff. Instead, reengineering and
yield enhancement was undertaken to improve the firm's
competitiveness in a marketplace that is moving, slowly perhaps,
toward free trade. For this company and many others in Ecuador,
the need to avoid waste of energy, water, chemicals, and other
inputs is blurring the distinction between technological change
aimed at reducing pollution and innovation aimed at containing
costs.
4.04 Identifying P2 measures that are profitable for polluting
firms to adopt is the central thrust of USAID's Environmental
Pollution Prevention Project (EP3). More than thirty
pre-assessments have been carried out in Ecuador with EP3
support. Of that number, eight have been selected for more
thorough assessment based on a high likelihood that ways will be
turned up to prevent pollution at a negative cost for the
participating firms. For example, a complete audit of an Ambato
tannery has uncovered eleven P2 measures that resulted in
significant short term cost savings.
4.05 Hirschorn and Associates (1994) have investigated
opportunities for the adoption of profitable P2 technology in
developing countries where USAID is active. Many of the
industries where such opportunities were found to be present are
prominent in Quito and Guayaquil. These include textiles,
leather tanning, metal finishing, paper, and vehicle repair and
maintenance. One electroplating firm cited in the study realized
annual cost savings of US$20,000 by adopting eighteen P2 measures
that cost approximately US$6,000. Application of eleven such
measures at a sheep tannery cost US$22,000 and yielded savings of
US$95,000 per annum.
4.06 Adoption of profitable P2 technology is never instantaneous
and automatic. Right now in Ecuador, high capital costs can be a
hinderance since nominal interest rates, which have approached 60
percent in recent months, exceed annual inflation (25 to 35
percent) by a wide margin. It is significant that the Guayaquil
company mentioned above was able to self-finance the entire
US$1.5 million investment required for reengineering and yield
enhancement. This option is not available to many firms with a
potential interest in P2.
4.07 The same company enjoys other advantages that put it in a
position to adopt cost effective measures for preventing
pollution. Its professional and managerial staff is familiar
with advanced manufacturing technology, in part because of long
term training in the United States. Furthermore, it has put in
place the accounting systems needed to keep track of costs,
generally, and materials, specifically. As a result, the firm is
in an excellent position to identify and take advantage of any
and all opportunities to lower costs, through the adoption of P2
measures for example.
4.08 As increased macroeconomic stability is achieved in Ecuador,
nominal and real interest rates should fall, thereby facilitating
the investments required for reengineering and yield enhancement.
Also, demand for skilled engineers and managers ought to increase
as economic liberalization proceeds and growth accelerates.
4.09 Something that USAID can do to promote P2 is to help firms
put in place the systems for materials and cost accounting needed
to make rational choices regarding technological adaptation
(White, 1993; Savage and White, 1995; Todd, 1994). More often
than not, waste and misallocation of energy, water, and other
inputs occurs because costs are lumped together in general
overhead accounts or because they simply go unrecognized in the
accounting and capital budgeting process. Waste disposal,
regulatory compliance, licensing and permitting are examples of
the former. Liability (where applicable), loss of markets owing
to noncompliance with international environmental management
standards, and revenues foregone by failing to capture salable
byproducts are examples of the latter.
4.10 It must be conceded that many P2 measures involve positive,
as opposed to negative, costs for polluting firms. Where this is
the case, human capital formation, macroeconomic stability, and
technical assistance will not usually suffice to achieve socially
efficient improvements in environmental quality. Public policy
must be structured in ways that assure that pollution is reduced,
through the application of P2 technology or other means, whenever
public health and other benefits exceed costs. The policy
instruments that can be employed to achieve efficiency are
examined in the next section of this report.
5. Policy Options
5.01 Regulation's lack of success in Ecuador probably benefits
the country in one sense, which is that a legal and bureaucratic
culture oriented toward controlling pollution at the "end of the
pipe" ("i.e.", after it has been generated) has never been
established. Where such a culture is in place, controls
frequently accomplish little more than to shift pollution from
one medium to another. For example, disposal of the solid wastes
that is collected by legally mandated filters and precipitators
may worsen groundwater pollution if those wastes are dumped in
poorly constructed landfills. To avoid this sort of outcome, the
general thrust of public policy should be to prevent waste
generation in the first place.
5.02 As is indicated in the preceding section, polluting firms
sometimes benefit from adopting P2 measures. Donor agencies,
public institutions, and nongovernmental organizations have a
role to play in facilitating this sort of technological change,
by providing training and technical assistance. Where
macroeconomic policy distortions have suppressed efficient
financial intermediation, a revolving fund to finance P2
investment could be set up. At best, though, this should be
regarded as a stop-gap that is no longer needed once the policy
reforms needed for macroeconomic stability have taken effect.
5.03 One way to promote the adoption of P2 technology that is
costly for the firms involved is to offer financial inducements.
Income and property tax deductions, tax exemptions, accelerated
depreciation, and subsidized loans can be offered for equipment
and machinery that reduces pollution. Under Ecuador's Mining
Law, incentives of this sort already exist for the country's
extractive industries. As has been emphasized already, priority
should be given to investments that prevent pollution, as opposed
to controlling it. Among such investments are those resulting in
the replacement of hazardous materials with more benign
substitutes, process redesign and optimization, product redesign,
as well as materials recycling.
5.04 Although many firms would express a preference for tax
breaks, low-interest loans, and other positive incentives,
subsidies can be difficult to administer. Applicants must be
screened efficiently. In addition, incentives can lead to
excessive entry into a polluting industry if they are not limited
to existing firms. Almost always, credible charges are levied
that the incentives scheme favors some firms or industries and
places others at a disadvantage.
5.05 One way to reduce pollution while maintaining a "level
playing field" for all firms and industries is to make
regulations fairer and more effective. In Ecuador, this involves
improved compliance plans, better management and disclosure of
information, and updating penalties.
- Compliance Plans. Consistent with existing provisions of the
1989 Regulation, a more detailed protocol should be developed for
(1) defining individual processes within facilities and (2)
performing materials accounting for each process. The objective
is to disaggregate production into component parts so that inputs
and waste byproducts become more transparent to the firm. This
allows for more effective targeting and prioritization of
pollution prevention and process optimization initiatives. At
the same time, protocols should be established so that Total Cost
Assessment (TCA) methods developed by the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency (USEPA) or substitute techniques aimed at
proper identification and allocation of the true costs of
pollution control can be applied.
- Information Management and Disclosure. A management
information system needs to be developed to compile, analyze and
publicly report current figures and trends in emission,
effluents, and solid/hazardous wastes. The purpose is to provide
government, industry, and the public a perspective on pollution
progress. This can build on the approach used in the PECIS study
while providing a repository for information submitted in the
compliance plans. For the first three years, data should remain
reported only in aggregated form, leaving open the possibility of
facility-specific information disclosure in the following years.
Data should allow evaluation of P2 progress at the facility
level.
- Penalties. The penalty provisions of the 1976 Law and 1989
Regulation need to be reviewed and updated. This is already
underway in Quito. Penalties should be commensurate with the
severity of the violation from the standpoint of environmental
damages. Allowance should be made to reduce or waiver penalties
provided that certain prescribed P2 measures are undertaken by
the noncomplying facility.
5.06 In recent years, the "polluter pays" principle has won wide
acceptance as an instrument of environmental policy in a number
of countries. For emissions to be reduced to an economically
efficient level, charges paid by polluters should reflect
marginal damages ("i.e.", the disutility associated with disease
and other impacts resulting from the last unit of pollutants
discharged). In practice, this is difficult to accomplish, given
the difficulties involved in estimating pollution costs.
However, there is no reason why a public authority cannot set
fees high enough to cause polluters to stop emitting TSP or lead,
for example, in areas where those contaminants have been linked
to high incidence of morbidity and mortality. Such fees should
be designed to foster pollution reduction and can be a highly
effective tool for reaching any given ambient environmental
standard.
5.07 Although many polluters can be counted on to balk at a
proposal to impose emissions charges, some manufacturers will
probably prefer them to subsidies and regulations. Charges, it
should be remembered, comprise a clear signal that, with proper
enforcement, apply equally throughout an industry, city, or
country. By contrast, subsidies and regulations are often not
applied in an even-handed manner. Support for charges,
particularly among more efficient enterprises, can easily be
enhanced by substituting them partially for income taxes.
5.08 Regardless of the relative emphasis placed on economic
incentives, regulations, and emissions charges, an improved
inspection system will have to be put in place. It might be
appropriate to form a commission to review and make
recommendations for restructuring the inspection system. This
group, comprising representatives of government, the private
sector, nongovernmental organizations, and the general public,
should review all aspects of current inspection practices in
Quito and Guayaquil including frequency, quality, results, type
and timing of actions taken after inspections, and compensation
of inspectors. The commission should also consider the effects
of merging IEOS into MINDUVI and creating the new Consejo
Nacional de Recursos Hidricos. Options for organizational and
financial changes to upgrade the quality of inspection should
include privatization of the function and incentives-based
approaches to maintain its quality and integrity. The commission
should complete its work within one year.
5.09 USAID can and should provide technical assistance and
training to support improved regulations, application of the
polluter pays principle, and other environmental policy
initiatives in Ecuador. Consistent with EP3, it can also help to
strengthen alliances among government, the private sector, and
nongovernmental organizations aimed at preventing pollution.
- Voluntary Programs. The public and private sectors should be
involved in the design and implementation of a voluntary program
to spur pollution reduction beyond compliance levels. This may
include listing chemical, energy-efficiency, and water-efficiency
targets. Facilities would agree to make best efforts to reach
such targets within a prescribed period of time. Lists of
participating firms would be publicly available, as would
progress evaluations.
- Training and Information Exchange. Programs of training in
pollution prevention and clean technology should be designed and
implemented for specific industries ("e.g.", wood products,
textiles, "etc.") and for specific cities. Priority should be
given to assisting firms in complying with national and municipal
laws and regulations. This should include both the technology
and hardware aspects as well as the management and software side.
The latter should include, for example, orientation to methods of
life-cycle analysis, total cost assessment, total quality
management. Industry environmental leaders should be recruited
to explain the application of "best practice" guidelines.
- Demonstration Projects. Government and the private sector
should collaborate to identify innovative technologies with
special promise in Ecuador and also to set up pilot
demonstrations. This sort of initiative should be aimed at
reducing the risk of major process and material changes that
individual firms would be reluctant to undertake on their own.
The focus should be on technology adaptation for generic
processes used by multiple industry sectors ("e.g." cleaning,
degreasing, coating, and soldering). To participate, a facility
must agree to rigorous monitoring and costing protocols, and to
share the results with interested firms within and outside its
sector. Initial and continuing results of the demonstration
should be disseminated through trade associations.
6. References
Comision Asesora Ambiental (CAAM). "Plan Operativo de Control de
Manejo de Los Desechos," Presidencia de la Republica, Quito,
1995.
Comision Asesora Ambiental (CAAM). "Principios Basicos Para La
Gestion Ambiental en el Ecuador," Presidencia de la Republica,
Quito, 1993.
El Puerto. "Amenaza por Contaminacion Industrial," 12-19
September 1994, p. 7.
Fundacion Natura. "Gestion Ambiental de la Industria en el
Ecuador," Proyecto Edunat III, Quito, 1993.
Gleick, P. (ed.). WATER IN CRISIS: A GUIDE TO THE WORLD'S
FRESH WATER RESOURCES. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993.
Gomez, L. (Director Encargado de Medio Ambiente, Distrito
Metropolitano de Quito), personal communication, 9 March 1995.
Hirschorn and Associates. "Candidate EP3 Industrial Groups and
Best Industrial Practice Pollution Prevention Accomplishment
Targets," Environmental Pollution Project (EP3), U.S. Agency for
International Development, Washington, 1994.
Hoffman Juarado Sandoval Consultores Cia. Ltda. "Proyecto de
Descontaminacion Industrial Con Mayor Impacto Ambiental en Quito,
Resumen Ejecutivo," Quito, 1992.
Hoy. "Realizaran Auditoria Ambiental," 12 August 1994.
I. Municipio de Quito. "Informe Tecnico de Evalucacion de la
Contaminacion Industrial del Sur de Quito," Programa de
Evaluacion de la Contaminacion Industrial en el Sur (PECIS),
Quito, 1994.
Instituto Nacional de Estadistica y Censos (INEC). ENCUESTA
ANUAL DE MANUFACTURA Y MINERIA, Tomo 1. Quito: 1992.
Instituto Nacional de Estad¡sticas y Censos (INEC). ANUARIO DE
ESTADISTICAS VITALES: NACIMIENTOS Y DEFUNCIONES. Quito, 1993.
Lozano, L. (Vice Presidente, Camara de Industrias de Pichincha),
personal communication, 21 March 1995.
Lu, F. BASIC TOXICOLOGY: FUNDAMENTALS, TARGET ORGANS, AND RISK
ASSESSMENT. New York: Hemisphere Publishing Corporation, 1991.
Santana, F. "Evaluacion de Eficiencia de Funcionamiento del
Sistema de Conduccion, Tratamiento y Disposicion Final del
Efluente Industrial de Curtiembre Guayaquil," 1989.
Savage, D. and A. White. "New Applications of Total Cost
Assessment: An Exploration of the P2-Production Interface"
POLLUTION PREVENTION REVIEW 5:1 (1995) 7-15.
Southgate, D. and L. Lach. "Air Pollution" (report to Regional
Housing and Urban Development Office and Quito Mission of U.S.
Agency for International Development), Environmental Policy
Analysis and Training (EPAT) Project, Washington, 1995.
Todd, R. "Zero-loss Environmental Accounting Systems," in B.
Allenby and D. Richards (eds.), THE GREENING OF INDUSTRIAL
ECOSYSTEMS. Washington: National Academy Press, 1994.
U.S. Department of Commerce. ANNUAL SURVEY OF MANUFACTURERS.
1991.
U.S. Department of Energy. MANUFACTURING ENERGY CONSUMPTION
SURVEY. 1991.
Wheeler, D., P. Martin, M. Heltige, and R. Stengren. "The
Industrial Pollution Projection System: Concept, Initial
Development, and Critical Assessment," Environment Department,
World Bank, Washington, 1991.
White, A. "Venezuela's Organic Law: Regulating Pollution in an
Industrializing Country" ENVIRONMENT 33:7 (1991) 16-42.
White A. "Accounting for Pollution Prevention" EPA JOURNAL, 19:3
(1993) 23-25.
MUNICIPAL SOLID WASTE
by
John Strasma, with Douglas Southgate, and Lori Lach
1. Solid Waste Generation in Urban Ecuador
1.01 The amount of trash that the residents of Ecuador's cities
throw away is about what one would expect, given prevailing
consumption patterns and standards of living. A survey sponsored
by the country's leading environmental organization revealed
that, on average, urban households generated 0.54 kg/day/capita
of solid waste in 1990 (Landin "et al.", 1993). In Guayaquil,
the average disposal rate was 0.62 kg/day/capita (Landin "et
al.", 1993, p. 30). In southern and northern Quito, average
rates for households as well as small businesses are 0.42 and
0.49 kg/day/capita, respectively, while in the central part of
the city the average rate is 0.74 kg/day/capita due to the large
number of day visitors (EMASEO, 1995, pp. 45-63).
1.02 These estimates are plausible in light of patterns of
household solid waste generation in other Latin American cities.
Citing Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) data, Landin "et
al." (1993) report rates for four major urban areas: about 0.5
kg/day/capita for Lima and 0.8 to 0.9 kg/day/capita for Buenos
Aires, Rio de Janeiro, and Mexico City. In Wisconsin, where
standards of living are much higher, household solid waste
generation averages a little more than 1.0 kg/day/capita (Strasma
"et al.", 1995, p. 2).
1.03 In addition to household garbage, significant quantities of
solid waste are generated by manufacturing enterprises, public
and private sector institutions, and commercial establishments.
Landin "et al." (1993, pp. 41-42) estimate that daily industrial
solid waste generation is between 360 and 420 tons. Guayas
province, where Guayaquil is located, and Pichincha, which is
Quito's province, generate the most industrial waste: 174 and
126 tons/day, respectively. Much of these amounts consists of
industrial scrap that never reaches a landfill because it is
recycled or sold as a byproduct.
1.04 Many industrial firms make their own arrangements for
hauling refuse to landfills. By contrast, practically all waste
from government buildings and commercial establishments
(including restaurants, small stores, and so forth) is collected
and transported along with household garbage. There are special
daily collections from public markets.
1.05 Garbage from hospitals, airports, and seaports is supposed
to be handled differently. Quito once had a special truck to
pick up medical waste from sixteen hospitals and clinics; unlike
other vehicles, it did not compress the waste in order to avoid
breaking bags and other containers. However, that truck is not
working, so medical refuse is now hauled to municipal landfills
in the same packer vehicles that pick up from households. Also,
the incinerator at the city's international airport is out of
order, so wastes from airplanes, which total approximately 1,400
tons per week, are handled the same as trash from other sources.
This is inconsistent with international agreements and national
law, which mandate prompt incineration of wastes from flights and
ships arriving from other countries.
2. Health Impacts of Deficient Solid Waste Services
2.01 Adequate solid waste collection and disposal may not be as
important for human health as access to potable water and
sewerage services is. However, trash accumulating in ravines and
vacant lots in poorly-served neighborhoods undermines property
values and therefore discourages the investment needed to improve
those neighborhoods. Moreover, deficient collection and disposal
can lead to disease. Solid wastes with high organic and moisture
contents can serve as a breeding place for insects, a reservoir
for bacteria, and a source of food for vermin. Furthermore,
human exposure to toxic substances can result because of leaching
from landfills, uncontrolled incineration, and improper handling
of medical and other special refuse.
2.02 Solid wastes are often a breeding ground for insects that
spread malaria, dengue fever, yellow fever, typhoid fever, and
bacillary dysentery, among other illnesses (Benenson, 1990). In
addition to serving as disease vectors, flies and mosquitos
facilitate transmission by biting and stinging people.
Scratching due to scabies or a mosquito bite, for example,
abrades the skin, thereby providing an opening for the invasion
of bacteria and viruses. Solid waste of high organic content is
likely to be teeming with such organisms. Salmonella (the cause
of typhoid and paratyphoid fevers), shigella (responsible for
bacillary dysentery), and other fecally transmitted pathogens are
abundant in many of Ecuador's urban neighborhoods due to poor
sanitation and lack of adequate water supplies.
2.03 Vermin attracted to garbage for food and refuge provide
another route for pathogen transmission. Rats, cats, dogs, and
other mammals can spread disease in two ways. As sources of
fleas and lice, they may aid in the transmission of "Rickettsia
prowazekii" (responsible for typhus fever), "Yersinia pestis"
(the cause of plague), and "Trypanosoma sp." (responsible for
Chagas' disease), although disease-causing agents must be present
in the population or environment first. They can also be direct
vectors for the transmission of Shigella and viruses causing
rabies (Benenson, 1990). Cats can be carriers of the virus
causing toxoplasmosis, which apparently results in hundreds of
miscarriages and birth defects ("e.g.", blindness) each year in
Guayaquil (Martinez, 1995). Seagulls, pigeons, and other birds
are less of a threat, but their droppings contain Cryptococcus,
which can cause respiratory infection when inhaled (Benenson,
1990).
2.04 Improper disposal of solid wastes may also expose human
populations to toxic materials. Burning of plastics, for
example, can release chlorinated hydrocarbons into the air.
Landfill leachate contains harmful organic compounds as well as
heavy metals. When it reaches streams, rivers, or groundwater
bodies used by households or farms, human exposure can result
(Pffefer, 1992).
2.05 Likewise, improper disposal of medical wastes may increase
the public health threats posed by infectious disease organisms.
Some pathogens, like Human Immunodeficiency Virus, are relatively
frail and are not likely to survive in the ambient environment.
But others, such as Hepatitis B, can withstand harsher treatment.
Illness and even death can result if wastes from hospitals and
clinics where the victims of these diseases are being treated are
collected, transported, and disposed of in the same manner as
commercial and household trash. As is mentioned above, this is
the prevailing pattern in Ecuador (Suarez "et al.", 1992;
Barzallo, 1995).
2.06 One option is to burn medical wastes. One hospital in Quito
and three in Guayaquil have incinerators. But only one of the
four is operational (Suarez "et al.", 1992) and it should be kept
in mind that incineration carries health risks as well. Recent
investigation in the United States reveals that the burning of
medical wastes releases dioxin (2,3,7,8-TCDD), which is
carcinogenic and fetotoxic (USEPA, 1981), into the air (Federal
Register, 1995).
2.07 Existing data do not allow for estimation of the public
health impacts of inadequate solid waste collection and disposal.
Collection crews and people who scavenge at landfills are most at
risk since they come into direct contact with bacteria and
viruses. Risks are also significant for those who live close to
carelessly managed dumps or who reside in crowded areas where
collection services are lacking. In addition, the general public
may be threatened because medical and hazardous wastes are
collected and buried together with other garbage.
3. Models of Solid Waste Collection and Transport
3.01 In Guayaquil, Machala, and Quito, there are three very
different organizations for collecting and hauling solid waste.
Each represents an effort to improve on traditional systems, in
which these services were provided by municipal agencies that
were subject to political interference and complex bureaucratic
rules. Each of the new arrangements has supporters and
detractors. Limited observation in the three cities leads us to
conclude that funding and the political support behind management
may be more important than formal organizational structures.
3.02 Guayaquil: A City Contracts Out, With Some Success. In the
late 1980s, trash collection broke down completely in Ecuador's
largest city (Ohnesorgen, 1990). Once the group of politicians
responsible for this and other municipal service failures was
voted out of office, Guayaquil was divided into two zones and a
local private firm was hired to operate in each zone.
Contractors were paid monthly lump sums for collecting and
disposing of wastes generated in their respective zones.
3.03 A new scheme was put into effect in 1994, when the city
government auctioned contracts to collect garbage in the two
zones to the lowest qualified bidders. The auction variable was
price per ton hauled to the city landfill, rather than a monthly
fee for operating in a specific area. Various international and
local companies competed, offering US$25 to US$40 per ton for the
most part. The winning bid, which was submitted for both zones
by a partnership of local investors and a Canadian firm, was only
US$9 per ton.
3.04 The new system has been functioning since late last year and
the quality of service, which is monitored mainly by city staff
stationed at the landfill, seems to be good thus far. Some
experts and many rival bidders predict that the Canadian-
Ecuadorian partnership will lose money. Close supervision by the
city government is being urged.
3.05 The case can indeed be made that the low bid reflects
inexperience. For instance, trucks and tires are lasting half as
long in Guayaquil, in a two-shift operation, as they do in
Canada, where one-shift operations are typical. Trucks have an
expected life of about 15,000 hours of service, whether they run
four hours a day or 14 hours a day, and they must be depreciated
accordingly. Just as municipal solid waste services in all three
of the cities examined in this report have not been setting aside
depreciation charges, the private operator may find itself in an
awkward position, about three years into the seven-year contract,
when trucks need to be replaced but there is not enough money to
do so.
3.06 That being said, it must be recognized that companies
sometimes try to break into international operations by bidding
"strategically." That is, they offer a low price, knowing they
won't make a normal profit, just to be sure they get a contract.
The Canadian partner, for example, has no previous experience in
Latin America. It has bid already on contracts in Colombia and
intends to compete for others. Good service in Ecuador raises
its credibility in nearby countries and it may be able to capture
scale economies in purchasing, management training, and so forth
by doing business in Guayaquil.
3.07 It is also true that US$9 per ton might not be an entirely
unrealistic price. True, collecting garbage a bag at a time in
residential areas is very expensive. However, the bid price is
probably an accurate reflection of the lower expenses of emptying
full containers at markets and factories. It is significant that
the Canadian-Ecuadorian contractor has a senior engineer and two
secretaries busily promoting new business from large generators.
They call on supermarkets and factories, which are currently
hauling their own waste, and point out that the City of Guayaquil
would provide that service free, just as it does to households
and small stores. All the contractor asks is that the factory or
supermarket invest in a dumpster or container. The contractor
will then call daily or whenever the container is full. This
arrangement gives the contractor tons of waste at a relatively
low cost.
3.08 Efforts to win business from large generators seem to be
having an effect. Whereas the municipal government expected the
contractor to haul 1,200 tons/day to the city landfill, actual
deliveries have averaged nearly 1,600 tons/day. The government
is probably not losing money since, in all likelihood, deliveries
multiplied by the US$9 fee are less than the 12 percent surcharge
on electricity bills that finances solid waste collection and
street cleaning (see below). Moreover, large waste generators
are being served well.
3.09 Once Guayaquil's experiment with the contracting of solid
waste collection and transport has run for a year or so, the data
needed for financial evaluation ought to be available. An
evaluation should reveal whether a price change is needed for the
Canadian-Ecuadorian partnership to earn a normal profit. Also,
consideration should be given soon to an alternative bidding
regime in order to strengthen incentives to operate in marginal
neighborhoods, which currently receive poor service. Such a
regime should be implemented well before the current seven-year
contract is re-bid.
3.10 Quito: An Autonomous Entity Makes Progress, But It's Not
Easy. Steep hills, narrow streets, and financial problems pose
huge challenges for any provider of solid waste services in the
Ecuadorian capital. These challenges have been faced since early
1994 by the Empresa Municipal de Aseo (EMASEO), which was created
to replace a city department.
3.11 The degree to which EMASEO is truly an autonomous enterprise
remains an open question. Its board of directors comprises the
mayor, the chiefs of two city departments, a city council member,
and an employees' representative. Since the departmental heads
answer to the mayor in all other matters, the latter individual
dominates the board and can easily influence purchasing,
personnel, and other decisions. EMASEO's capacity to function
autonomously is also circumscribed because it is subject to many
of the bureaucratic controls applied to its predecessor and
throughout the public sector. For example, firing a worker is
all but impossible unless he or she is caught engaging in theft,
bribery, or some other crime. Also, EMASEO gets regular visits
from the Contraloria General del Estado, which audits all state
agencies.
3.12 No serious conflicts between EMASEO and its board have been
reported to date. The general manager, who has considerable
experience in the construction business and who ran Quito's
autonomous sewage company for five years, is close to the mayor,
who appointed him. He is mainly preoccupied by financial
matters. Whereas a 12 percent surcharge is levied on electricity
bills to pay for solid waste services in Guayaquil, the surcharge
is only 10 percent in the national capital. According to
EMASEO's manager, labor, fuel, and maintenance costs have risen
more rapidly than surcharge revenues have done in recent years;
in 1995, the company will have an operating deficit.
3.13 Financial difficulties make it difficult for EMASEO to
expand service. The percentage of households served is higher in
Quito than in Guayaquil, in part because more innovative
approaches have been applied in the former city. For example,
small side-loading trucks have been acquired from Japan to serve
poor neighborhoods, which are hilly and have narrow streets.
These trucks are being operated under contract with micro-
entrepreneurs. To extend this model to other parts of the city
currently receiving inadequate service, every opportunity to
reduce the cost of collecting and disposing solid wastes will
have to be exploited fully. This might require additional
modification of institutional arrangements. Almost certainly, it
will involve developing alternatives to hauling large volumes of
garbage great distances to a new landfill, located 45 km north of
central Quito. These alternatives are examined later in this
report.
3.14 Machala: A Traditional City Department Hopes To Change. As
in Quito, Guayaquil, and other Ecuadorian cities, garbage
collection and street sweeping in Machala have been the
responsibility of a municipal department, which also happens to
issue operating licenses to stores, restaurants and bars, and so
on. The department's 100 or so unionized employees, who operate
three packer and three dump trucks, have been picking up garbage
at curbside on routes that cover half the city. This service is
provided every other day. The rest of the city, consisting
mostly of squatter settlements scattered along and over canals
and swamps, has received no service whatsoever.
3.15 The city council recently approved an ordinance that
authorizes the creation of an autonomous enterprise, wholly owned
by the city government, that will pick up and haul away solid
wastes. One option for the new entity would be to operate
exactly as the municipal department has done in the past,
collecting garbage entirely on its own. However, it also has the
prerogative to contract those services out to private firms or
persons.
3.16 For the time being, no changes will be made in that half of
the city currently receiving curbside service. But in squatter
neighborhoods, where most roads are too narrow for a truck to
pass, trash is to be picked up from households and carried out to
transfer points by tricycles with a 1-m3 box. At the transfer
points, packer trucks, operated by five-person crews, are to
retrieve what the tricycle operators have dropped off on the
ground.
3.17 The original proposal was for tricycles to be owned and
worked by micro-entrepreneurs living in squatter neighborhoods
and recommended in some way by their respective communities.
Beyond providing collection services, those individuals were
expected to encourage people not to litter and to present their
trash in plastic bags. A commercial bank stood ready to finance
the tricycles, with three-year loans to be paid off with a
monthly deduction from fees paid by the contracting enterprise
for services rendered.
3.18 By late 1994, the issue of how exactly to contract tricycle
owner-operators was still being debated. Per-kilo payments could
have been offered. Alternatively, compensation could have been
based on keeping a particular area clean. Resolution of this
issue, and others related to the involvement of micro-
entrepreneurs, has been deferred. Because of the border conflict
with Peru, in early 1995, banks cut back on new loans and raised
interest rates dramatically. In addition, the USAID-funded
engineers and Peace Corps volunteers who were advising on
implementation of the scheme had to be withdrawn for a while.
3.19 However, tricycle pickup in squatter settlements held
obvious advantages, so Machala's director of public services
arranged for two tricycles to be bought and four casual laborers
to be hired. Four areas are receiving service every other day
from a tricycle manned by a two-man crew. [Experience shows that
two people are needed to push a fully loaded tricycle.]
3.20 Two factors appear to be contributing to the success of the
new system. First, the casual laborers who man the tricycles
know that they can be dismissed without notice or indemnization
if a foreman is unhappy with their performance. Casual
observation suggests that they work longer and harder and leave
less trash on the ground than do unionized city employees.
Second, the tricycles can be purchased cheaply (US$200, versus
US$200,000 for a packer truck) and are also relatively
inexpensive to maintain (with a typical repair bill amounting to
less than US$20).
3.21 Aside from making a final decision to abandon the idea of
contracting with micro-entrepreneurs, Machala's garbage company
should consider what improvements should be made at transfer
points. It does not take a pair of workers very long to fill a
tricycle box and, between visits by a packer truck, a pile of
garbage at a transfer point can grow into an unsightly and smelly
nuisance. An alternative would be to install dumpsters, but this
would oblige the purchase of trucks capable of raising and
emptying such containers.
4. Sanitary Landfills and Open-Air Dumps
4.01 As far as most clients of a solid waste services system are
concerned, collection and hauling are the main criteria for
judging performance. A more complete assessment, though,
involves examination of final disposal as well. As is reported
in this section of the report, Guayaquil, Quito, and Machala have
addressed disposal issues in various ways.
4.02 Guayaquil's Sanitary Landfill. In most Ecuadorian cities,
wastes have been hauled to open-air dumps that have no liners,
covers, or barriers to keep out scavengers. It has been common
for the poor to build shacks right beside or on top of wastes, if
they couldn't find anywhere else to live. Until recently, this
was the case in Guayaquil as well.
4.03 The port city will soon have a new, modern landfill, with
impermeable clay on the bottom, rock "chimneys" through the waste
to help methane gas escape into the atmosphere, and perimeter
fencing to catch windblown paper while keeping animals,
squatters, and scavengers out. Rock channels are being
constructed to carry rain water and leachate under the waste and
out at the lower end of the waste pile. In time, pipes may be
laid to channel the leachate somewhere for treatment, though
sewage treatment in Guayaquil is woefully inadequate at present
(Frederick with Southgate and Lach, 1995).
4.04 In all likelihood, amortization expenses for the new
facility, which has been designed in accordance with U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) standards, will amount to
several dollars for every ton of garbage that is delivered and,
in effect, entombed. For some components of the waste stream
("e.g.", construction and demolition debris), the cost is not
warranted. There is a more fundamental problem with the
entombment approach, which is that it is probably far beyond the
financial means of all but a few Ecuadorian cities. If
development banks made adoption of that approach a prerequisite
for financing of solid waste systems, as some are tempted to
recommend, local governments might have to choose between cutting
back on some services (to pay for expensive landfills) or
forgoing landfill improvements entirely.
4.05 Recent and Planned Improvements in Quito. Until recently,
solid wastes generated in the national capital were dumped in an
unlined portion of the Zambisa canyon, in the northeastern part
of the city. The site is now surrounded by residential
neighborhoods, including some affluent ones. In response,
operations have been improved and plans for opening a sanitary
landfill, like the new facility in Guayaquil, are being pursued.
4.06 Improvements at Zambisa, which used to be nothing more than
an open dump, are intended to reduce odors as well as exposure to
disease. Dirt is bulldozed over all garbage an hour or two after
it has been deposited. Scavengers, of which there are two
hundred or so, can no longer live on mounds of waste, as was
formerly the case. They still sift through garbage as quickly as
it arrives, looking for paper, cardboard, metal, plastic and
glass bottles, and even edible food wastes. However, the
scavengers have been persuaded to move out most of their children
and livestock.
4.07 Zambisa continues to be a threat to public health. Methane
gas is present and at times catches fire. Also, there is no way
to capture leachate, which flows out the bottom of the site.
Mosquitos can breed in stagnant water collecting in pools as well
as in the old tires that litter the area. The municipal
government will be dealing with these problems for years to come.
4.08 To be sure, neighbors would benefit greatly if Zambisa were
closed. EMASEO has plans to build a new sanitary landfill some
45 kilometers north of central Quito. However, switching to the
new site would add US$2.50/ton to average hauling costs, which
along with collection expenses now amount to US$30/ton. It is
understandable, then, that the company is trying to persuade the
neighbors to allow the landfill to continue functioning.
4.09 Sooner or later, the new landfill will be needed. Permanent
entombment of all garbage may be too costly, although the site
north of the city should have well-lined and protected cells for
medical refuse and toxic and hazardous wastes. Already,
construction of a new transfer station in southern Quito is under
way. Garbage from that part of the city will be hauled to the
new facility, where it will be compressed into semi-trailers for
the haul to either the present landfill or the new one.
4.10 Machala's Open-Air Dump. Surrounded by residential
neighborhoods, a school, an asphalt plant, and a banana
plantation, the dump where Machala's garbage has been deposited
for fifteen years was formerly a sand and gravel pit. The site
is still privately owned, although the municipal government has
not paid rent for some time. It is speculated that the owner
plans to reclaim the site for development of some sort once the
pit is full.
4.11 Several scavengers have put up flimsy shelters along the
dirt road leading to the dump and several dozen people work over
waste as it arrives. They compete with a few dogs and hundreds
of large birds. The municipal government keeps a bulldozer at
the site and uses it to cover some of the older waste with a
layer of dirt.
4.12 Machala has a possible location for a new landfill, much
farther from the center of the city. However, with its entire
annual garbage budget only totalling US$500,000, municipal
leaders understandably wonder whether site preparation is
affordable. One alternative would be to develop a regional
facility, to serve all cities, towns, and villages in the area.
It would also be appropriate to seek closer sites for
construction and demolition debris and for composting vegetable
matter, which is less hazardous.
5. Making Garbage Collection and Disposal in Ecuador More
Efficient
5.01 On the basis of limited observation in Guayaquil, Quito, and
Machala, we have suggestions to make about how to improve solid
waste services in the country. Three recommendations have to do
with collection and hauling. First, use of plastic bags can be
suggested, but should not be obligatory. Second, no single mode
of garbage collection should be applied across the entire
country. Third, the net value of developing new micro-
enterprises should not be exaggerated. With respect to final
disposal, decisions about construction standards about new
landfills will have to be made and objections from the neighbors
of the new sites will have to be dealt with in some way.
5.02 Each of these ideas and recommendations is elaborated in the
paragraphs that follow. The possibility of reducing waste
volumes through increased recycling is examined in the next part
of the report.
5.03 On the Use of Plastic Bags. The residents of Guayaquil and
Machala have been instructed to put their trash out in plastic
bags. The expected advantages are that the bags are light and
the workers can pick them up and put them in a truck or tricycle
box with less mess and fuss than is involved if people present
garbage in open containers ("e.g.", old cooking oil cans).
5.04 Use of plastic bags does not necessarily result in major
reductions in litter. Dogs, cats, and rats often tear into bags,
making a mess along the curb or sidewalk. Scavengers sometimes
do the same, even though they face occasional fines for
littering. A better way to reduce littering is to install more
metal racks to store garbage out of the reach of animals, as is
routinely done in many middle-class Latin American neighborhoods.
5.05 In all likelihood, obliging the poor to put garbage in
plastic bags, which cost 100 sucres (US$ 0.04) apiece, would make
little sense because the use of open containers in the
neighborhoods where they reside probably does little harm. As a
rule, someone is at home all the time in a typical slum household
(to guard against theft) and it is the habit of many such
individuals to take out the trash, bagged or otherwise, right
when a garbage truck or tricycle, led by a worker ringing a
cowbell, passes nearby.
5.06 Appropriate Technology for Garbage Collection. In the past,
per-unit collection costs have been driven up markedly in Ecuador
as Quito, Guayaquil, and other cities have tried to rely
exclusively on modern packer trucks. The financial burden
implied by this approach has made it impossible to serve all
neighborhoods. The problem is much like the limited extension of
municipal water systems resulting when per-household costs are
driven up by the application of high-cost water delivery
technology (Frederick with Southgate and Lach, 1995).
5.07 This experience should be kept in mind when considering the
diffusion of any new mode of garbage collection. For example,
tricycles that work very well in Machala, which is totally flat,
may not transfer to the hillier slums of, say, Quito. Side-
loading small trucks seem to be especially well suited to the
latter city, where it would also make sense to place animal-proof
containers at the foot of alleys and paths that are too narrow
for vehicles. As a rule, no single collection mode is apt to be
appropriate for all parts of a heterogeneous country like
Ecuador.
5.08 On Small-Scale Community-Based Garbage Collection. In
various studies of solid waste management in Ecuador and other
developing countries, it is recommended that local micro-
enterprises be organized to collect garbage in poor neighborhoods
using low-cost methods. Those micro-enterprises would also be
involved in community-organizing aimed at reducing litter.
5.09 Balanced against the appeal of this approach, which was
advocated for the slums of Machala (see above), is all the effort
required to organize micro-enterprises and to arrange financing
for their equipment. An alternative, which Quito is employing,
is to contract with the owners of pickups and larger trucks.
Since many of those vehicles sit idle a good deal of time, the
prices that must be offered to engage them are not very high.
Furthermore, there is no need to arrange credit for truck
purchases. It is estimated that the total cost, including
vehicle rental as well as wages for casual laborers hired to load
garbage, amounts to 15 to 18 percent of what would be spent if
EMASEO did the job itself (Sevilla, 1995). This sort of
contracting can be done on a short-term ("e.g.", six-month)
basis, with renewal based on quality of service provided.
5.10 Norms for New Landfills. As existing dumps are filled in
Quito, Machala, and other cities, new facilities will have to be
developed. Obviously, one set of choices that will have to be
faced relates to construction standards.
5.11 Those choices could well be driven by forces outside of
Ecuador. In particular, there appears to be a tendency to apply
USEPA standards in new landfills financed by development banks.
The principle guiding those standards can accurately be described
as entombment. Impermeable covers are put in place to prevent
water from filtering in, so as to minimize anaerobic
decomposition, and plastic and/or clay liners are installed at
the bottom to prevent leachate from reaching underground
aquifers. Instead, that leachate is channeled out through a
network of pipes. Also, methane, which is a product of anaerobic
decomposition, is monitored and maybe burned.
5.12 The purpose of all this effort, which involves a
considerable expense, is to keep garbage from rotting. For some
categories of garbage, like construction and demolition debris,
the effort is entirely misdirected. Likewise, yard wastes and
food scraps lend themselves well to composting ("i.e.", aerobic
decomposition), which can be managed fairly cheaply and which
yields a usable product (see below).
5.13 New technologies for controlled decomposition of solid
wastes, as an alternative to entombment, are being developed,
which should have an impact on USEPA standards for the
construction and operation of landfills. In the meantime,
expensive landfill capacity should not be displaced with non-
hazardous materials. Construction and demolition debris should
be deposited elsewhere and recycling should be promoted.
5.14 Resolving Landfill Siting Controversies. Even if new
landfills and other solid waste facilities are constructed and
operated properly, at least a few neighbors are bound to object.
For example, community opposition caused municipal authorities
not to locate the new transfer station in southern Quito at the
site that would have made sense from the standpoint of minimizing
transportation costs. Likewise, businesses and residents of the
town closest to the proposed landfill north of the city have
protested vigorously. One of their concerns is that tourism in
the area, which is traversed by the equator, will diminish. No
negotiations between town representatives and EMASEO are taking
place at present, nor has any date for beginning construction
been set.
5.15 There are, of course, two extreme reactions to neighborhood
opposition. One is for decision-makers to back down and the
other is for them to barge ahead, perhaps claiming that the
neighbors of an undesirable facility have a "civic duty" to put
up with it. Between these two extremes are various intermediate
responses. Waste streams can be diminished in various ways,
thereby postponing the date at which construction of a new
landfill can no longer be avoided. Once that date is approached,
local opposition can be addressed by reaching a binding agreement
on how the landfill is to be operated and also by offering
compensation.
5.16 Negotiations with local communities have become a routine
feature of landfill development in the United States. Among the
subjects of negotiation are hours of operation and fencing and
other measures for preventing the spread of garbage. When
bargaining reaches an impasse in Wisconsin, each party must
submit a "final and best offer," only one of which can be
selected by an independent arbitrator. This arrangement provides
a strong incentive both sides to be reasonable and to reach an
agreement on their own.
5.17 Over the years, compensation for landfill neighbors has
changed dramatically in the United States. The traditional
practice was for payments to be made only when neighbors sold
their properties and when a real estate appraisal demonstrated
that the landfill had depressed the price. Nowadays, it is
common for landfill operators to collect trash for free in
surrounding communities and also to pay local governments fees
ranging from US$0.25 to US$1.00 for every ton delivered to the
landfill. In addition, payments to individual neighbors are
made. A neighbor might get as much as US$1,000 when he or she
agrees to stop opposing a landfill. Also, individual households
are paid US$200 to US$2,000 yearly as long as the landfill
operates. Needless to say, the size of payment depends on the
recipient's proximity to the facility.
5.18 There appears to be no tradition for compensating the
neighbors of waste disposal sites in Ecuador. This is a serious
omission since some of the costs neighbors incur because of
landfill development are tangible and should be covered in some
way.
6. Recycling's Contribution
6.01 Obviously, expenditures on solid waste services can be
brought down by diminishing solid waste volumes. The combined
approach for accomplishing the latter is often expressed as "the
three Rs": reducing material use; reusing containers, packaging,
and other things; and recycling. Quite a lot of materials
reduction seems to have been achieved in Ecuador and reuse of
containers and packaging is commonplace, particularly among the
poor. For example, steel and aluminum cans have walls just as
thin as the newer models in the United States. Some consumers
take cloth bags to the store and the poor often take food
purchases home in old newspapers to avoid buying plastic bags.
Also, tires are usually recapped at least once before being
discarded.
6.02 Future investigation of solid waste management in Ecuador
should address the various ways that manufacturers could reduce
material use. Also, several issues associated with the reuse of
containers and packaging merit closer examination. For example,
at least some illness results from the reuse of bottles that have
not been cleaned properly, although there has been no empirical
research of this problem in the country. The comments and
recommendations offered in this section of the report have to do
with the economics of recycling as well as scavengers' role in
that process.
6.03 Markets for Recycled Products. To be sure, there are
several recyclable materials that are routinely sold at prices
that cover collection, processing, and marketing costs. Aluminum
cans, cardboard and newspapers, and glass bottles usually fall in
this category. However, many enthusiasts in the United States
have learned the hard way that prices for some materials fall
well short of costs. For example, the expense of gathering,
washing, granulating, and pelletizing enough foam plates and cups
to make recycled polystyrene exceeds that commodity's price by a
wide margin. Indeed, the gap between cost and price is so wide
that it is usually cheaper to dispose of the plates and cups in a
landfill. Where "success" has been achieved in the recycling of
such products, it is usually because labor has been volunteered
by schoolchildren or some other group, a purchaser wants to
enhance its "green" image and is willing to pay more for recycled
materials, or both.
6.04 Scavengers, who are principal agents of recycling in a poor
country like Ecuador (see below), are fully aware of the
fundamental economics of their line of work. On 20 March 1995,
for example, several of them working at Zambisa did not bother to
retrieve a huge pile of foam plastic plates that was covered with
rotting food. They knew that, once a deduction had been made for
processing expenses, a buyer would offer them little or nothing
for the material. By contrast, scavengers interviewed on Quito
streets confirmed that they find it worth their while to pick up
clean polystyrene foam packaging material, particularly outside
commercial stores that throw out large amounts every night. Of
course, paper fiber in various forms is routinely collected and
recycled. Corrugated cardboard is especially prized since it
fetches a good price from intermediaries.
6.05 It is highly unlikely that city governments, voluntary
organizations, and the like can improve greatly on the recycling
that scavengers do already. As Porter (1994) has observed in a
study of solid waste management in Jakarta, Indonesia, the prices
they receive for recyclable materials can be regarded as
reasonably efficient since individual scavengers' rights to work
in particular areas are usually respected and since there is a
certain degree of competition among intermediaries and presumably
among plants as well. Much more is to be gained by exploring
options for recycling in poor neighborhoods, which are less
attractive to scavengers than middle-class areas are, and also
for the composting of food scraps and other organic wastes, which
scavengers seldom retrieve and which comprise up to 70 percent of
household solid wastes in urban Ecuador (Landin "et al.", 1993).
6.06 One of the more promising initiatives to increase recycling
in poor neighborhoods got under way in March 1993 in El Carmen,
which is a neighborhood in southern Quito. Under the sponsorship
of Roque Sevilla, a leading businessman and environmentalist as
well as an elected member of the city council, a micro-enterprise
was formed to involve residents in the recovery of plastic,
paper, glass, cardboard, and metals. As its predecessor had
done, EMASEO is supporting the venture by providing plastic bags
free of charge, covering some out-of-pocket expenses, and
advising on operations. Also, its employees pick up bags
containing materials that cannot be recycled. The micro-
enterprise sells recyclables to the usual buyers. Similar
initiatives have been organized in other neighborhoods.
6.07 Since organic materials comprise well over half the trash
thrown out by urban households in Ecuador, composting represents
a major opportunity to reduce expenditures on solid waste
services. It must be emphasized, though, that composting is
unlikely to be an economic bonanza for Guayaquil, Quito, or any
other city. The basic problem is that the end-product's market
value is usually low because concentrations of plant
macronutrients ("i.e.", nitrogen, phosphorous, and potassium) are
not very high and also because it sometimes contains shards of
glass and plastic. In general, compost is most prized by certain
agricultural producers ("e.g.", cut flower enterprises) that
require a potting medium that is rich in organic matter and free
of plant pathogens. Once that market is saturated, the product
can be used for soil improvement, for example in places where
erosion has taken a heavy toll. However, this latter use does
not carry a high market value.
6.08 At best, composting ventures in Ecuador have achieved modest
results. A few years ago, for example, Fundacion Natura and
Machala's municipal government sponsored a demonstration of
organic compost beds, in which vegetables were raised in
decomposed kitchen refuse. The communal plots were abandoned
after a couple of years, though some households decided to use
home-produced compost in backyard gardens. However, even if
composting is not profitable, it might still be a worthwhile
venture for a solid waste service insofar as transportation and
landfilling costs are reduced.
6.09 What To Do about Scavengers. As has been indicated already,
scavengers are the primary agents of recycling in Ecuador, as
they are in just about every other poor country. Nobody would
think of interfering with them in any urban neighborhood,
provided they do not litter as they go about their business. In
addition, scavengers generally respect each others' right to pick
through garbage along particular streets. Also, garbagemen wait
a day or so before collecting furniture, sports gear, bicycles,
and other items that might have value in order to give scavengers
a chance at retrieval.
6.10 Long commonplace, scavenging at dumps and landfills has been
discouraged in recent years in a number of Ecuadorian cities.
The most extreme measures are being applied at Guayaquil's new
sanitary landfill. Fences, closed-circuit TV cameras,
floodlights, and armed guards are being used to keep out
scavengers and other unauthorized persons. So far, these
measures have proven effective. By contrast, past sporadic
attempts to restrict access to Machala's unfenced dump have had
no lasting impact.
6.11 In Quito, picking through garbage is permitted at Zambisa.
But scavengers have been talked into moving their children and
most of their livestock away from the site, in order to limit
exposure to disease. When and if the new landfill north of the
city is opened, scavenging might well be banned, since it is
risky to operate heavy equipment with dozens of people around and
also because damage to clay and plastic liners must be avoided.
6.12 While it is undeniable that sifting through garbage at a
landfill can damage one's health, it is also true that
scavengers' alternative employment options are very limited. For
the most part, they have little education and quite a few have
criminal records. Furthermore, it must be recognized that they
provide a service. Even the employees of Guayaquil's new
landfill, who are pleased by the tidiness and simplicity
resulting from an absence of scavengers, admit that they regret
seeing perfectly good material buried.
6.13 Short of making the human capital investments that would,
over the long term, reduce the number of people for whom
scavenging is the most remunerative line of work, the twin aims
of employing low-skilled individuals and recycling can probably
be served best by setting up a Materials Recovery Facility (MRF)
at Ecuador's major landfills. MRFs in rich countries usually
hire unskilled laborers to break open plastic bags of trash, to
push the contents onto conveyor belts where magnets remove
ferrous metals, and to pull plastics, glass, and aluminum off the
belt by hand. Worthless objects fall into a dumpster at the end
of the belt and are hauled to a landfill.
6.14 Since wages for unskilled workers in Ecuador are quite low,
MRFs in Quito, Guayaquil, and other cities should be less
capital-intensive than their counterparts in the States are.
Indeed, Ecuadorian facilities could be quite simple, consisting
of an open shed, to provide protection from the sun and rain, and
a small bulldozer to feed trash onto a conveyor belt. If
operation of an MRF has a sizable impact on trash going to a
landfill, the entity in charge of the solid waste system might
choose to let people working in the facility market recyclable
materials in lieu of being paid a wage. Also, people working at
MRFs should be encouraged to take measures ("e.g.", wearing
gloves and masks) that prevent the spread of disease.
7. Administrative and Financial Issues
7.01 Institutional arrangements governing the collection,
hauling, and disposal of garbage in Ecuador are in flux and
continue to arouse considerable debate. However, it might well
be that the practical consequences of choices among those
arrangements are not especially important. For example, EMASEO's
performance strongly suggests that creating a municipal
enterprise with formal autonomy does not always cut down very
much on red tape in purchasing and labor relations. Two
institutional issues are probably of much greater substance. The
first is how to go about contracting with private firms, which is
possible in each of the three cities examined in this report.
The second issue is financing of solid waste services.
7.02 Contracting. Although many Latin American cities are
contracting with private firms to provide various solid waste
services, many city governments and municipal enterprises have
little experience and less information on how to supervise the
process of calling for bids, negotiating contracts, and enforcing
the terms of the contracts. Consultants are available, of
course, and copies of contracts used in the United States and
Europe circulate freely. As is discussed at the end of this
report, USAID could enhance the ability of local public
government in Ecuador to supervise the contracting process
through training and technical assistance.
7.03 Financing of Solid Waste Services. The institutional
arrangements governing solid waste services are in flux in each
of the three cities examined in this report. Moreover, cost
accounting was not done well (or at all, in some cases) under
previous regimes. What this means is that the expense of
providing solid waste services is difficult to determine.
7.04 EMASEO considers that average collection and hauling costs
in Quito are about US$30 per ton, while operation of the
controlled landfill at Zambisa probably costs another US$3 per
ton. Between fees paid to the private contractor and salaries
received by municipal employees working at the landfill and other
locations, total expenditures on street sweeping, garbage
collection and hauling, and operation of the new landfill amount
to US$10 or so for every ton delivered to that facility.
Amortization of landfill construction costs and other capital
expenses probably approach US$10 per ton as well. Running the
old system of garbage collection and disposal in Machala involved
an average cost of US$15.69 in 1993; at that time, the average
cost of serving poor neighborhoods with tricycles was estimated
to be US$4.77 (Stern, de Jesus, and Romero, 1994).
7.05 The relationship between these costs and revenues from
surcharges on electricity bills, which range from 7 to 12
percent, varies from place to place. Since the surcharge in
Guayaquil is 12 percent and the fee paid to the private
contractor to collect and haul away garbage is only US$9 per ton,
the municipal government is probably turning a profit,
notwithstanding the contractor's aggressive pursuit of new
business (see above). When interviewed in March 1995, Machala's
Director of Public Services stated that the 10 percent surcharge
would probably be enough to finance all solid waste services.
However, the municipal government was delinquent in paying old
lighting bills. In order to retire outstanding debt and also to
have all new bills on time, the City and the electricity company
have agreed to let the utility deduct directly from surcharge
payments. After these deductions, which amount to half of total
surcharges, there is not enough left to pay for all solid waste
services (Barzallo, 1995).
7.06 In Quito, the surcharge on electricity bills is 10 percent
and EMASEO reports that it is received in full, but is not really
enough to cover expenses. The enterprise has no depreciation
reserves or capital with which to buy new vehicles to replace the
present fleet, most of which is older than its normal service
life. EMASEO is thinking seriously about contracting out
services, largely so that private investors can arrange and be
paid for the purchase of new vehicles. In the meantime, it has
had to seek financial support from the municipal government to
cover cash shortfall.
7.07 There does not seem to be any satisfactory alternative to
the present method for financing solid waste services. It would
certainly be reasonable to have large generators, like factories,
supermarkets, and apartment buildings, contract directly with
private haulers, whom they would pay for the service. This is
standard practice in the United States. But a general system of
user fees is not feasible at present and would work against full
coverage of low-income areas. If a price per bag were charged,
many residents would burn garbage or throw it into ravines, just
as poor people in the countryside usually do. Policing this sort
of behavior would be much more difficult in Ecuador than in the
United States, where junk mail found in illegally-discarded trash
can be used to identify perpetrators. Besides, user fees would
be resisted by the poor, who object to proposals to force the use
of plastic bags, which cost about US$0.04 apiece (see above).
7.08 Another alternative would be to use general municipal tax
revenues to fund solid waste services. For two decades after
Ecuador became an oil exporter, in 1972, local tax rates were
very low and collection tended to be sporadic. Those rates have
risen appreciably in the 1990s and collection has become much
more energetic. However, local tax revenues, which must be used
to support various municipal services, can not yet be
characterized as a highly reliable funding base for the
collection, transportation, and landfilling of solid wastes.
7.09 Surcharges on electricity tariffs have drawbacks. If diesel
and other fuel oil is subsidized, as it has been in the past,
there would be incentives for factories and other large consumers
to generate their own power, which would diminish public utility
revenues. But the surcharge system has important merits. For
one thing, it works. Electricity companies are quick to cut off
illegal hook-ups and also to cut off service when bills remain
unpaid, which means that surcharge revenues are much more
reliable than a solid waste system's cut of local tax revenues,
for example, would be. Another advantage is that all households,
businesses, and other establishments that consume electricity
pay. This is appropriate because they all produce solid wastes.
It also bears mentioning that surcharge revenues are less immune
to the impacts of inflation than local tax revenues are since
electricity tariffs tend to rise in line with increases in the
general price level. Finally, the surcharge is, in the main,
progressive since the rich probably spend a higher percentage of
their income on lighting than the poor do. This is an important
an advantage in Ecuador, where the distributional impacts of
taxes and other public policies have been strongly regressive.
7.10 Society as a whole has a strong interest in reliable funding
for comprehensive solid waste services. Exposure to disease is
not limited to those poor neighborhoods where trash collection is
sporadic since direct and indirect contact between the residents
of those neighborhoods and the rest of any city's population is
routine. Furthermore, inadequate collection causes drains and
sewers to be clogged, which interferes with wastewater removal.
As is stressed in a companion report on urban water issues in
Ecuador, public health is seriously jeopardized in Guayaquil,
Machala, and other cities as a result (Frederick with Southgate
and Lach, 1995).
8. Opportunities for External Development Agencies
8.01 Development agencies can make a substantial contribution to
the improved delivery of solid waste services in Ecuador. For
one thing, technical assistance and training can be offered to
help public officials make informed choices among the policy
choices they face. One area that should be emphasized is
techniques for contracting out services as well as supervising
contractors' performance. While there is scope for bringing
consultants from abroad, some of the most lasting and productive
initiatives would involve internships abroad for engineers and
other technical staff, complemented by study tours for political
leaders who would need to understand and approve the new
management procedures. Sister city and state programs may be a
good vehicle for carrying out this sort of interchange.
8.02 Financing for the construction of new facilities,
remediation of problems at older solid waste facilities, and the
like might also be appropriate, especially for the World Bank and
IDB. However, this support should be linked to positive steps
taken by local governments and enterprises toward sustainable
self-financing. Among those steps are proper cost accounting and
the establishment of a reliable revenue base.
9. References
Barzallo, J. (Director de Salud Publica, I. Municipio de
Machala), personal communication, 15 March 1995.
Benenson, A. CONTROL OF COMMUNICABLE DISEASES IN MAN (15th
edition). Washington: American Public Health Association, 1990.
Empresa Municipal de Aseo (EMASEO). "Informe Tecnico de la
Recoleccion de los Desechos Solidos Ordinarios de la Ciudad de
Quito, Distrito Metropolitano," Quito, 1995.
Federal Register 40 CFR Part 60. Standards of Performance for
New Stationary Sources and Emission Guidelines for Existing
Sources: Medical Waste Incinerators, Proposed Rule, February 27,
1995.
Frederick, K. with D. Southgate and L. Lach. "Potable Water
Supplies and Sewage Management" (report to Regional Housing and
Urban Development Office and Quito Mission of U.S. Agency for
International Development), Environmental Policy Analysis and
Training (EPAT) Project, Washington, 1995.
Landin, C., R. Rodriguez, M. Merchan, S. Cherrez, P. Canizares,
W. Guerrero. MANEJO DE DESECHOS SOLIDOS EN EL ECUADOR. Quito:
Fundacion Natura, 1993.
Martinez, A. (Director de Salud Publica, Higiene, y Medio
Ambiente, I. Municipio de Guayaquil), personal communication, 16
March 1995.
Ohnesorgen, F. "Appraisal Report on Committee's Proposal to
Privatize Solid Waste Services" (report to Quito Mission of U.S.
Agency for International Development), Guayaquil, 1990.
Pfeffer, J. SOLID WASTE MANAGEMENT ENGINEERING. Englewood
Cliffs: Prentice Hall, 1992.
Porter, R. "The Economics of Water and Waste" (draft),
Department of Economics, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, 1994.
Sevilla, R. (Concejal, I. Municipio de Quito), personal
communication, 23 March 1995.
Stern, J., T. de Jesus, and F. Romero. "Mejoramiento de los
Servicios de Recoleccion y Procesamiento de Desechos Solidos y
Aseo de Calles, Machala, Ecuador," USAID Regional Housing and
Urban Development Office for South America, Quito, 1994.
Strasma, J., P. Anderson, and M. Wallace. "Wisconsin Waste
Generation, Composition & Disposition: 1993 Estimates and 1995
Projections" (report to Wisconsin Department of Natural
Resources), Recycling Economics Group, University of Wisconsin,
Madison, 1995.
Suarez, J., J. Oviedo, J. Alban, N. Reascos, R. Barreto, and A.
Gordillo. MEDIO AMBIENTE Y SALUD EN EL ECUADOR. Quito:
Fundacion Natura, 1992.
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA). "Risk assessment
on (2,4,5--trichlorophenoxy) acetic acid (2,4,5-T), (2,4,5-
trichlorophenoxy) propionic acid, and 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-
p-dioxin (TCDD)" (Document EPA-600/6-81-003), Office of Health
and Environmental Assessment, Washington, 1981.
LIST OF INTERVIEWEES
Water Report Contacts
Aguirre, Mariana, Manager, Planta La Lucha, Machala
Baquerizo, Pablo, independent businessman, Guayaquil
Barcos, Xavier, Chairman of Board of Directors, Empresa Cantonal
de Agua Potable y Alcantarillado de Guayaquil
Camacho, Carlos, Senior Economist, Instituto de Estrategias
Agropecuarias, Quito
Carcelen, Juan, Secretario General, Consejo Nacional de Recursos
Hidricos, Quito
Castillo, Guillermo, President of Board of Directors, Empresa
Municipal de Alcantarillado de Guayaquil
Cevallos, Jorge, Director and Principal Consultant, Unidad de
Estudios Ambientales del I. Municipio de Guayaquil
Chiriboga, Luis, Vice President, Consejo del I. Municipio de
Guayaquil
Colon, Jeff, Peace Corps volunteer, Machala
de Guzman, Alberto, USAID Consultant, Subsecretaria de
Saneamiento Ambiental, Quito
de Mena, Elsa, Economist, Empresa Municipal de Agua Potable -
Quito
Encalada, Wilmer, Director, Departamento de Projectos del I.
Municipio de Machala
Kernan, Bruce, Regional Environmental Advisor, USAID
Larrea, Renan, Project Specialist, RHUDO-SA
Laspina, Carmen, Director, Departamento de Medicina Preventiva
del Ministerio de Salud Publica, Quito
Martin, Anne, Water and Sanitation Projects Specialist, RHUDO-SA
Martinez, A., Director, Departamento de Salud Publica, Higiene, y
Medio Ambiente del I. Municipio de Guayaquil
Menoscal, Rafael, President of Board of Directors, Empresa
Provincial de Agua Potable del Guayas
Moscoso, Alfonso, Chief of Party, World Bank Water Project, Quito
Salvador, Rodrigo, Technical Director, Empresa Municipal de Agua
Potable - Quito
Torres, Milton, Environmental Director, Subsecretaria de
Saneamiento Ambiental, Quito
Yamashita, Kenneth, Public Health and Family Planning Officer,
USAID
Air Report Contacts
Encalada, Marco, President, Corporacion OIKOS, Quito
Gomez, Luis, Acting Environmental Director, Districto
Metropolitano de Quito
Jurado, Jorge, Environmental Subdirector, Corporacion Financiera
Nacional, Quito
Oviedo, N., Executive Director, Centro de Estudios de Poblacion y
Paternidad Responsable, Quito
Salazar, Mario, EP3 Project, USAID
Sevilla, Roque, Councilman, Consejo del I. Municipio de Quito
Yamashita, Kenneth, Public Health and Family Planning Officer,
USAID
Industry Report Contacts
Alarcon, Francisco, President, Camara de Industrias de Guayaquil
Avila, Jose, Consultant, Comision Asesora Ambiental de la
Presidencia, Quito
Barcos, Xavier, Chairman of Board of Directors, Empresa Cantonal
de Agua Potable y Alcantarillado de Guayaquil
Castillo, Guillermo, President of Board of Directors, Empresa
Municipal de Alcantarillado de Guayaquil
Castro, Ramiro, Comision Asesora Ambiental de la Presidencia,
Quito
Cevallos, Jorge, Director and Principal Consultant, Unidad de
Estudios Ambientales del I. Municipio de Guayaquil
Chiriboga, Luis, Vice President, Consejo del I. Municipio de
Guayaquil
Diaz, Danilo, Corporacion OIKOS, Quito
Fernandez, Maria Agusta, Disaster and Environmental Advisor,
RHUDO-SA
Fritz, Paul, Local Government Programs Advisor, RHUDO-SA
Gomez, Luis, Acting Environmental Director, Districto
Metropolitano de Quito
Jurado, Jorge, Environmental Subdirector, Corporacion Financiera
Nacional, Quito
Kozhaya, Jacinto, President, Benemarmol S.A., and Vice President,
Fundiciones Industriales S.A., Quito
Laspina, Carmen, Director, Departamento de Medicina Preventiva
del Ministerio de Salud P£blica, Quito
Lozano de Kubes, Lucila, Vice President, Camara de Industriales
de Pichincha, Quito
Menoscal, Rafael, President of Board of Directors, Empresa
Provincial de Agua Potable del Guayas
Pareja, Armando, General Manager, Fabrica de Aceites "La
Favorita" S.A. and Jaboneria Nacional S.A.
Peira, Jose, Comision Asesora Ambiental de la Presidencia, Quito
Salazar, Mario, EP3 Project, USAID
Sevilla, Roque, Councilman, Consejo del I. Municipio de Quito
Solid Waste Report Contacts
Alvarez, Julio, President, Empresa Municipal de Aseo, Quito
Apolo, Alfredo, Director, Departamento de Servicios Publicos del
I. Municipio de Machala
Barzallo, J., Director, Departamento de Salud Publica del I.
Municipio de Machala
Baquerizo, Pablo, independent businessman, Guayaquil
Carabajo, Sonia, Fundacion Natura (Capitulo de Guayaquil)
Carcelen, Francisca, Director of Environmental Education,
Fundacion Natura (Capitulo de Guayaquil)
Castillo, Guillermo, President of Board of Directors, Empresa
Municipal de Alcantarillado de Guayaquil
Cevallos, Jorge, Director and Principal Consultant, Unidad de
Estudios Ambientales del I. Municipio de Guayaquil
Colon, Jeff, Peace Corps volunteer, Machala
Duran, Ivan, Departamento de Servicios Publicos del I. Municipio
de Machala
Encalada, Marco, President, Corporacion OIKOS, Quito
Encalada, Wilber, Director, Oficina de Programacion de Proyectos
del I. Municipio de Machala
Gomez, German, IDB Consultant, Oficina de Planificacion del I.
Municipio de Guayaquil
Mariduena, Leonardo, Oficina de Planificacion del I. Municipio de
Guayaquil
Martinez, A., Director, Departamento de Salud Publica, Higiene, y
Medio Ambiente del I. Municipio de Guayaquil
Menoscal, Rafael, President of Board of Directors, Empresa
Provincial de Agua Potable del Guayas
Pulley, Michael, Solid Waste Specialist, RHUDO-SA
Romero, Fatima, USAID Consultant, Machala
Sevilla, Roque, Councilman, Consejo del I. Municipio de Quito
Silva, Teresa, USAID Consultant, Machala
Torres, Fausto, Manager, Consorcio Vachagnon, Guayaquil
Wong, Gerald, Mayor's Representative, Unidad de Coordinacion del
Credito BID 919 SF/EC, Guayaquil
Zuniga, Gustavo, Director, Aseo de Calles, Guayaquil
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