This report is intended to assist those who influence public and private sector investments in solid waste collection systems in developing countries.

The Governing Council of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) has directed its International Environmental Technology Centre (IETC) branch to take action in the area of waste management. There are substantial co-benefits of waste management in the context of climate change.

In a rapidly urbanizing global society, solid waste management will be a key challenge facing all the world's cities. This publication provides a fresh perspective and new data on one of the biggest issues in urban development. Using the framework of Integrated Sustainable Waste Management, the report presents unprecedented research from 22 cities across six continents.

This publication suggests solutions that can be built into the design of urban development projects undertaken by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) to address the common problems and grievances of the urban poor, and to improve urban governance overall.

CPCB has evolved a Comprehensive Environmental Pollution Index (CEPI) for 88 study areas with an objective of identifying polluted clusters or areas in order to take concerted action and to centrally monitor them at the national level to improve the current status of their environmental components such as air and water quality, ecological damage and visual environmental conditions.