Emergency Solid Waste Collection, Landfill Rehabilitation and Jobs Creation Program (SWM)

The SWM program was a highly participatory employment generation program designed to alleviate, on an emergency basis, the severe health and environmental hazards caused by the visible and urgent solid waste management crisis faced by the residents of the Port-au-Prince metropolitan area, and to inject much needed income into the hands of poor Haitian workers.

The SWM program quickly achieved a level of intensity wherein it outperformed the collection efforts of the local municipal and regional authorities, and contributed significantly to the improvement of civic cleanliness and public health in the metropolitan area.Even with the SWM program operating at full capacity, however, the combined efforts of SWM and local authorities managed to collect only approximately 40% of the daily production of solid waste in the metropolitan area (approximately 600 tonnes/day, or 74,000 m3, collected of an estimated 1,600 tonnes/day, or 197,000 m3, produced).