Social Enterprise: Social Value and Process Challenges in Solid Waste Management During the COVID-19 Pandemic

This chapter focuses on understanding of solid waste management, highlighting the changes being attempted and the challenges being faced at the interphase of waste generation and collection in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. One of the challenges in waste management is the absence of a culture of segregation of waste at the generation points. An additional dimension to segregation of solid waste is the health hazard due to the infectious nature of the waste, particularly mixing with the general non-infectious waste making the entire mass potentially infectious. Using a qualitative case method, this research examined the process challenges of social enterprises engaged in solid waste management when facing external emergencies like the COVID-19 pandemic. Data was gathered by interviewing project coordinators and founder-operations heads of social enterprises involved in solid waste management in urban and rural areas. The findings suggest that, in emergencies like the pandemic, social enterprises highlight the criticality of resourcing, social networking, and empathy in waste management. They do this through processes adopted for addressing the problems of fear of contact, spread of infection through handling of waste, and easing the reluctance to participate in segregation, collection, and disposal of waste.