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Guidelines for National Waste Management AMANAPANGONIMBY6Asian Development BankAfrican Development BankClean Development MechanismConference of the PartiesCommission on Sustainable DevelopmentExtended Producer ResponsibilityEuropean UnionEurosEuropean Bank for Reconstruction andDevelopmentFood and Agriculture Organization of the UnitedNationsGlobal Alliance for Incinerator AlternativesGlobal Environment FacilityGreenhouse GasDeutsche Gesellschaft fuer InternationaleZusammenarbeit (German Agency for TechnicalCooperation). Formerly GTZGlobal Programme of ActionGlobal Partnership on Waste ManagementGross Value AddedInternational Atomic Energy AgencyInternational Bank of Reconstruction andDevelopmentInter-American Development BankInternational Environmental Technology CentreInternational Finance CorporationInstitute for Global Environmental StrategiesInternational Labour OrganizationInternational Maritime OrganizationImplementation and Enforcement ofEnvironmental LawInter-Organization Programme for the SoundManagement of ChemicalsIntergovernmental Panel on Climate ChangeInternational POPs Elimination NetworkInternational Partnership for Expanding WasteManagement Services for Local AuthoritiesInternational Solid Waste AssociationInternational Waste Working GroupInternational Convention for the Preventionof Pollution from Ships and its ProtocolMultilateral Environmental AgreementMiddle East and North AfricaMobile Phone Partnership InitiativeMunicipal Solid WasteNationally Appropriate Mitigation ActionNational Adaptation Program of Action onClimate ChangeNon-Governmental OrganizationNot in my NDPUNEPUNIDOUNITARUSEPAWEEEWHAWHOWIEGO3ROffice for Coordination of Humanitarian AffairsOzone-Depleting SubstancesOrganisation for Economic Cooperation andDevelopmentPartnership on Action for Computing EquipmentPan American Health OrganizationPolychlorinated BiphenylPlan Nacional de Gestión Integral de ResiduosSólidos (National Plan for Integrated WasteManagement)Proyecto Nacional para la Gestión Integral de losResiduos Sólidos Urbanos (National Strategy forIntegrated Management of Urban Solid Waste)Plan Nacional Integral de Residuos (NationalStrategy for Waste)Persistent Organic PollutantPublic-Private PartnershipPollutant Release and Transfer RegisterPolyvinyl ChlorideRestriction of the Use of CertainHazardous SubstancesStrategic Approach to InternationalChemicals ManagementSustainable Development GoalsSecretariat of the Pacific RegionalEnvironment ProgrammeSolid Waste Exchange of Information andExpertise NetworkSolid Waste ManagementUnited KingdomUnited NationsUnited Nations Centre for Regional DevelopmentUnited Nations Development ProgrammeUnited Nations Environment ProgrammeUnited Nations Industrial DevelopmentOrganizationUnited Nations Institute for Training andResearchUnited States Environmental Protection AgencyWaste Electrical and Electronic EquipmentWorld Health AssemblyWorld Health OrganizationWomen in Informal Employment: Globalizingand OrganizingReduce, Reuse and Recycle

ForewordFOREWORDSally Fegan-WylesThe statistics are stark: 3.5 billion people, or half of theworld’s population, are without access to waste management services, and open dumping remains the prevalentwaste-disposal method in most low- and lower middleincome countries.More than 1.3 billion tonnes of municipal solid wastewere estimated to have been generated in 2012 and 2.2billion tonnes a year are expected by 2025. Urbanization,industrialization, increasing population and economicdevelopment are all contributing to the rise in waste andalso to its increasing complexity and hazardousness.Figures on municipal solid waste collection rates aresimilarly sobering. In low- and middle-income countries collection coverage can be as low as around 40%,compared to the 98% for high-income countries. Somemiddle-income countries still dispose of waste at poorlyoperated landfills.Poor waste management can lead to some significantenvironmental and health hazards. For example, leachatefrom waste can contaminate soil and water, open burning of waste can cause air pollution, and a failure to userecycled materials from waste means an acceleration of thedepletion of ‘raw’ materials. Unfortunately, it is the urbanpoor – who live and work near waste disposal sites – thatare most at risk sometimes suffering acute health impacts.These striking facts and figures, along with the realityof poor institutional capacity, financial constraints and lackof political will, make waste management among the mostsignificant planning challenges faced by developing andtransition-economy countries in the 21st century.For some governments dealing with the mix of environmental, social and poverty issues presented by bothformal and informal waste management is a struggle.Achim SteinerWaste-related problems are often handled in a fragmentedand uncoordinated manner, mainly focusing on end-ofpipe solutions rather than on prevention measures andintegrated approaches.A greening of the waste management sector – one thatshifts the emphasis to the 3Rs (reduce, reuse, recycle) –is essential to achieve the economic, environmental andsocial objectives of sustainable development. This couldgenerate jobs and contribute to economic growth whileaddressing environmental issues in a pro-poor andequitable manner.The Guidelines for National Waste Management Strategies:Moving from Challenges to Opportunities – a joint effort of theUnited Nations Environment Programme and the UnitedNations Institute for Training and Research – sets a conceptual and methodological framework for national planningthat countries may adapt to their particular circumstances.The new guidelines are an early response to recommendations of the 2012 United Nations Conference onSustainable Development (Rio 20) which called for thedevelopment of comprehensive national waste management strategies. We hope it will inspire and encouragegovernments and other stakeholders to give improvedwaste management appropriate priority so that it furthersupports sustainable development.Sally Fegan-WylesAchim SteinerUN Assistant Secretary-GeneralActing HeadExecutive Director, UNITARUN Under Secretary-Generaland Executive Director of UNEP7

Guidelines for National Waste Management StrategiesEXECUTIVESUMMARYIn June 2012 the United Nations Conference on SustainableDevelopment adopted, as part of the main outcome document, “The Future we Want”, a call for countries to developand enforce comprehensive national and local wastemanagement policies, strategies, laws, and regulations.This call was a response to the challenges presented byunsustainable production and consumption, including theclear and unavoidable evidence of that unsustainability inthe generation of waste. Increasingly, that challenge willcome to be faced most acutely in developing countries.CHALLENGES ANDOPPORTUNITIESThe challenges waste poses to governments and communities are many and varied. Globally, the amounts of wastebeing generated are increasing, especially in developingcountries. Much of it is poorly managed, as in cases wherewaste is not collected, disposal sites are inadequate, orwaste is contaminated with hazardous materials. Whennot properly managed, waste has major impacts on humanhealth, especially for those living near disposal sites;protecting human health is the reason why cities collectmunicipal solid waste (MSW). Waste also has a range of environmental impacts, on air, water, and land; for example,decay of organic waste contributes 5% of greenhouse gasesglobally. Waste is a major economic drain, especially on citybudgets: frequently 50% of a city’s budget is spent on wastemanagement. And the inefficient use of scarce resourcesreflected in materials discarded and abandoned as waste8represents a huge economic and environmental cost borneby society as a whole. Socially, waste has a disproportionateimpact on the poor and marginalised in cities, towns andvillages. Waste pickers and others earning a meagre incomeon the fringes of the waste management industry, especially women, are frequently among those who have mostdifficulty making a viable place for themselves in localeconomies.But waste is not only a challenge: it is also a largelyuntapped opportunity. Proper waste management presentsan opportunity not only to avoid the detrimental impactsassociated with waste, but also to recover resources, realiseenvironmental, economic and social benefits and take astep on the road to a sustainable future. The benefits ensuewhen waste is treated as a resource, a resource that can berecovered and put to productive and profitable use. Products can be reused and the materials that make them upcan be recovered and converted to other uses or recycled.If waste is separated at source, the uncontaminated organicfraction can be composted or digested anaerobically. Manyimprovements in waste management deliver benefitssimultaneously across a multitude of fronts: requiring lessinvestment, delivering jobs and livelihoods, contributing toeconomic growth, protecting public health and improvingthe environment. For example, improving the operation ofwaste pickers in collecting and recycling useful productsand materials can lead to better economic outcomes for thewaste pickers themselves; to better quality organic wastethat can be composted and used to improve soils; and toless need for investment in landfill facilities, as waste isdiverted to more useful paths.Even more progress can be made if production andconsumption processes are re-evaluated, so that all theinefficiencies, losses and adverse impacts associated withgenerating and managing waste are reduced, or, for certainkinds of products, even eliminated completely.Improved waste management offers particular benefitsto the socially marginalised. The informal sector, whichplays a vital role in many developing economies, can berecognised, protected, professionalised and integrated intothe waste management system. This sector already makesa significant contribution, which can be built upon todevelop a low cost, efficient and remarkably effective grassroots recovery, reuse and recycling system.Waste management requires governance that takesinto account the complexities and inter-relationships bothwithin and outside government. Waste management is acooperative process requiring the involvement of a widerange of different interests, including: government atnational and local levels (and sometimes the regional level

Executive Summary nild / photocase.comas well); the private sector, which usually plays a major roleand makes a major contribution; workers, including theinformal sector; the community and its leaders; and others,such as non-governmental organizations (NGOs) andresearch interests. It is both a challenge and an opportunityfor governance to recognize all these varying interests,and reconcile their different perspectives. Governance inthe domain of waste management exists within a dynamicpolicy environment, in which major changes and shifts arefrequent.RATIONALE FORA NATIONAL WASTEMANAGEMENT STRATEGYThe objective of this guidance document is to improveupon the approach to waste management, which in mostdeveloping countries is disorganised, haphazard andunder-resourced. This document aims to remedy theproblem by establishing a clear rationale for making wastemanagement a national priority, and by providing anorganised, logical set of steps to tackle that priority throughthe creation and implementation of a national strategy.Given the many different interests and aspects of government policy that are affected, this strategy must be carefullycoordinated with other national policies and plans.A successful national strategy can be measured by howwell it meets the challenges and delivers the benefits fromthe opportunities presented by waste management, and inparticular the extent to which it realizes these gains on anational scale.This document provides a conceptual and methodological framework that countries may apply and adapt totheir particular circumstances. It outlines a possible processand poses questions that countries may wish to consider asthey develop integrated national waste management strategies. Part I of the document is an introduction providingcontext, an overview and an examination of preliminaryissues, including the rationale for a national waste management strategy. Part II explores the challenges and opportunities waste management presents. Part III deals withthe major considerations influencing the policy choicesinvolved in a national strategy, while Part IV outlines theprocess of strategy development, monitoring, and implementation. To support the methodology, the documentprovides additional information resources in the annexes.A NATIONAL PRIORITY,A NATIONAL STRATEGYMost waste management, and in particular the management of MSW, is local, rather than national. But adoptingwaste management as a national priority presents anopportunity to give the issue political and social visibility,to apply resources that are commensurate with the prioritygiven and to ensure that action is coordinated and that national markets for recovered materials operate effectively.In responding to the challenges and opportunities ofwaste management, national governments have a wealth9

Guidelines for National Waste Management Strategiesof material on which to rely. They can refer to fundamentalguiding principles such as the waste management hierarchy,the concept of the life-cycle of a product and rethinkingwaste as a resource. Setting aims, objectives, goals, andtargets enables the end result of the policy road and themilestones along it to be defined with clarity. Regulatory,economic, informational and a range of other policy toolsare available and have been applied elsewhere. A widerange of information resources and many successfulexamples are available that can be used to help makegood decisions.STEPS TO A NATIONALSTRATEGYFor each of the significant issues confronting a country,a policy choice must be made. The choices made, and theresulting organized and planned set of actions to implement them, constitute a national strategy. The presentguidance document provides a path to identify and makethese choices, according to the following planned andmeasured steps:Getting startedIn order to begin the process, it will be necessary to identify who will take the lead, andgather essential information (through a baseline study) toprovide the basis for deciding to develop the strategy. Itmay also be relevant to undertake other groundwork, suchas assembling information on other countries’ experiencefrom a similar starting point, or undertaking an estimate ofthe costs imposed on the country by current waste management practices. All of this groundwork and preparationwill provide the basis for a high level decision to proceedwith the development of the strategy. 10Fundamental elements of the strategyFundamentals need to be identified early asthey influence all other aspects. These include:Establishing the scope of the national strategyIdentifying an overarching goal and supporting targetsEstimating expected national benefitsIdentifying initial options for financing and resourcingthe process of strategy development, and buildingcapacities for, and during development of the strategySetting a timeline for the development of the strategyIdentifying linkages to other plans and areas of nationalpolicy.Engagement with all the relevant partiesWaste management is an inherently cooperative activity. A wide variety of groupings andinterests need to be engaged, and their energies harnessed.Part of this process will involve setting up relevant consultative and management bodies (e.g. a national wastemanagement coordinating committee or similar structure),establishing coordination and cooperation processes withingovernment and between different levels of government(e.g. national and local governments) and identifying whowill lead and manage the development of the strategy. Securing political endorsement at an early stage is a critical step.Situation and gap analysisThis is a more detailed examination of a country’sstarting point, focusing on the wider contextand identifying relevant national priorities (e.g. related tohealth or development), the information base for strategydevelopment, the current state of waste management, theavailable technical infrastructure and its adequacy, the legaland regulatory settings and their adequacy and the available capacities, especially in terms of human resources.Priority settingThis step requires that waste streams andwaste issues such as collection or disposal, thatare urgent and/or important, be identified. Other broaderissues requiring priority attention, such as, for example,investment or funding needs, should also be identified.Developing a national strategyThe national strategy is composed of a systematic assembly of policy choices made at a givenpoint in time, within the national context, that builds uponand addresses the fundamental elements and situation andgap analysis, while giving particular emphasis to priorityissues. It is critical that the completed national strategyreceive high level endorsement and political commitment,and be subject to an appropriate public consultation andinformation process.IMPLEMENTATIONDrawing up a national strategy is a demanding task initself, but is a wasted effort unless the strategy is implemented. This document sets out not only how a strategyshould be developed, but also how it can be implementedand monitored, as well as reviewed and updated as needed.

Part I: Introduction – Context and Overview1.1THE GUIDANCE DOCUMENT1.2UNDERLYING CONCEPTS – WASTE STREAMS1.3UNDERLYING CONCEPTS – WASTE MANAGEMENT HIERARCHY1.4WHY SHOULD A WASTE MANAGEMENT STRATEGY BE DEVELOPED AT THE NATIONAL LEVEL? zettberlin / photocase.com Shutterstock.comBy PublicDomainPictures / CC0 / via pixabay.com o-zero / photocase.comPART IINTRODUCTION –CONTEXTAND OVERVIEW11

Guidelines for National Waste Management Strategies1.1THE GUIDANCEDOCUMENTIn June 2012, the UN Conference on Sustainable Development adopted the “The Future we Want” 1 as its mainoutcome document. Paragraph 218 called for the development and enforcement of comprehensive national andlocal waste management policies, strategies, laws andregulations, with a particular focus on life-cycle approachesand the development and implementation of policiesfor resource efficiency and environmentally sound wastemanagement. The objective of this guidance document isto help countries respond to that call: to develop and implement national waste management strategies, or, if theyalready have such strategies, to help them review, reviseand update them. Other relevant international recommendations and mandates encouraging integrated approachesto waste management are listed and summarised in Annex A.It is important to respond to the conclusions of theUN Conference, but it is equally important to recogniseand respond to the issues that underlie and led to thoseconclusions. Waste presents major challenges and equallymajor opportunities, both of which are especially acute fordeveloping economies. For example, the vast and steadilygrowing quantities of waste g

Author: Mark Hyman (Consultant, UNEP) Contributors: Brandon Turner (UNITAR) and Ainhoa Carpintero (UNEP) Supervision: Matthew Gubb (UNEP), Jonathan Krueger (UNITAR) and Brandon Turner (UNITAR) Project coordination: Ainhoa Carpintero (UNEP) Editor: Tess Cieux. Reviewers and contributors: Africa: Anis Ismail (SWEEP-Net GIZ), Casmir Ogueri (Environ-