Trayectoria del servicio de aseo en la ciudad de Bogotá: análisis de las coaliciones promotoras (1991-2015)

Abstract

Addressing the issue of solid waste management from a public policy analysis currently becomes a necessity for the academic, administrative and social sectors, due to the link between the development of urban centers and the management of garbage. However, despite the importance it deserves, this collective issue lacks the socio-political recognition it needs. Without considering the social, environmental and economic effects derived from this provision, the treatment of garbage has been more similar to the development of an economic activity than to the provision of a public service. The technical knowledge of the market and the variations in technological development have allowed this problem to be debated in specialized spaces from an economic regulatory perspective instead of that of Public Policy. With this economic approach, solid waste management has progressively lost its social, environmental and political dimension. More than the regulation of market agents, there are cultural dynamics of consumption and logics of economic growth and social exclusion that aggravate the problem of garbage. We are facing a scenario characterized by weak state institutions, unequal distribution of resources, processes of migration from the countryside to urban centers and population growth rates to the detriment of natural resources, therefore, waste management is not only an economic activity. Subject to the laws of the market, it is a public matter that is created in a specific political context, which must be understood in pursuit of the well-being of present and future generations.