Air Quality, Waste Burning, and Health Inequality: A Cross-regional Study of Informal Settlements and Marginalised Communities

Project title

Air Quality, Waste Burning, and Health Inequality: A Cross-regional Study of Informal Settlements and Marginalised Communities

Description

This interdisciplinary project explores the environmental and health impacts of waste burning in informal settlements and marginalized urban areas.

Project background

The burning of waste is commonplace around the world, whether from necessity in low or lower middle income countries (LICs or LMICs) where infrastructure for waste management may be limited, or by as a policy decision in upper middle or high income countries (UMICs or HICs).

Regardless of context, burning occurs as a response to environmental challenges (excess waste, low recycling, land availability, emissions from landfill) and raises more challenges in turn (air quality, water quality, environmental inequalities).

The project will deploy low-cost sensors to collect air quality data in informal settlements in South Africa and compare it with marginalized urban spaces in the West Yorkshire region of the UK.

Waste burning manifests very differently in the two regions of study. Household and local waste burning in informal settlements in South Africa is the primary form of waste disposal.

In the UK, waste incinerators have increased from 38 to 52 facilities between 2019 and 2024 and now accounts for half of all waste disposal in the UK.

Project overview 

With increasing use of incineration in two different areas with different communities and socioeconomic contexts, the project will explore three key questions:

• What are the environmental and health consequences of waste burning in these two areas?
• How is waste burning perceived by local people?
• What options do local people have to mitigate the consequences?

Community members will be involved as co-researchers, ensuring that the research design is inclusive and contextually relevant. Workshops with community groups will co-design data collection strategies to address issues of trust and power dynamics around data collection.

Additionally, gender will be explored as a key dimension, investigating how health inequalities manifest differently based on residents' roles and time spent in these environments.

Some group members’ expertise in regional comparisons will help bridge differences across research sites, promoting cross-institutional insights. Through this work, we will explore the extent to which different decisionmakers (from individuals to states) can alter the burning process, housing provides protection from air pollution, the consequences of single large or several small burning sites on exposure, the role of open green (grass/woodland) areas in providing an escape from poor air quality.

This project aims to inform sustainable alternatives to waste burning and foster collaboration between Leeds and Wits researchers, advancing solutions that promote both environmental and social sustainability.