Waste case.

This week's Economist had an interesting article on the lucrative waste business that is, like many industries, being dominated by global conglomerates. Among other things, the article highlighted a slightly disturbing fact in that developing countries are moving towards the privatization of this business. I am fairly confident that we have seen this scenario end in failure before. In fact, there seems to be a striking similarity between the privatization of waste disposal and the privatization of, say, water. Sure, these are two very different "public utilities," but the argument for relying on privatization to create efficiencies in the system is not necessarily a valid one in the context of a developing country. There is a notable difference in this case, which is the absence of the World Bank and the IMF, although their involvement would not surprise me.

That being said, I do find some promise in this model. Specifically, in the potential for proliferating emission reduction/alternative energy technologies. Because we are talking about developing countries, the Kyoto-derived CDM comes into play, which could make for a very attractive investment in these new technologies by the waste management firms (or through partnerships with specialized firms). Perhaps, this round of privatization will allow countries like India and China to, at the very least, capture/negate some of their waste-related emissions and, in doing so, begin to participate in the global effort to address climate change. I hope that is the case anyhow. I imagine only time will tell.