With 54% of the world population living in urban areas (66% projected for 2050), the urgent need to commit efforts in the construction of an integral and sustainable management of resources is reaffirmed. The Integral Urban Solid Waste Management (GIRSU) approach promotes the incorporation of the concept of the 3 Rs (Reduce, Reuse, Recycle) as one of the pillars of its strategy. When setting policies to implement the GIRSU in a city, it is necessary to have tools and indicators to evaluate the current situation of the system and its evolution over time, monitoring the results obtained with the implementation of the 3 Rs and raising improvement alternatives. The studies of urban metabolism can be applied to this end. This article focuses on the urban metabolism studies and the tools and indicators associated with them as support for the elaboration of proposals for an integral management of urban solid waste (RSU). This paper addresses the case of the city of Tandil. A Material Flow Diagram (DFM) of the waste is made using the STAN® 2.5 software. To be able to specify this, the actors involved in the management system of the RSU and their interrelationships are first identified. Then the flows of the system are considered and quantified with the available information. This simple exercise allows to have a first image of the system and the weight of the current recycling in relation to the amount of waste generated. On the other hand, the results obtained serve to propose necessary strategies, identify and obtain the missing information and the control points that allow the generation of the monitoring indicators of the 3R policies.