Kiribati hosts hazardous waste management meeting [1]
Monday, October 19, 2015 - 17:38. Updated on Wednesday, December 9, 2015 - 10:07.
Kiribati is playing host this week October 19-22 to representatives from 13 Pacific Island countries and territories who are meeting to discuss hazardous waste management in the Pacific as part of the PacWaste project.
PacWaste (Pacific Hazardous Waste) is a €7.85 million, four year project supported by the European Union and implemented by the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP) to improve regional hazardous waste management across the Pacific. PacWaste has four focus areas - asbestos, E-waste, healthcare waste and integrated atoll waste management.
PacWaste Project Manager, Stewart Williams stated that Kiribati was selected as the venue for the meeting to enable participants to witness, first-hand, some of the unique challenges faced by low-lying atolls in sustainably managing waste and to encourage south-south co-operation and information exchange.
“The relative isolation of atolls and their small land area can make sustainable waste management very challenging,“ he stated.
“On Tarawa there has been some encouraging work taking place such as the lagoon landfilling system at Nanakai and the Kiribati te boboto ‘Green Bag’ programme, which was funded through the New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade. We hope to discuss how we can apply lessons learned from these projects to planned PacWaste activities in Kiribati and other countries in the Pacific.”
Kiribati
Taulehia Pulefou, Officer in Charge of the Environment and Conservation Division at Kiribati's Ministry of Environment, Lands and Agricultural Development stated: “This a very good opportunity for Kiribati to showcase our waste management success stories as well as demonstrate challenges on the ground. It will also provide the opportunity to engage with other people across the region and share our experiences.”
Jesús Laviña, Head of Section for Natural Resources and Infrastructure at the European Union Delegation for the Pacific, Suva, stated that the EU is pleased to be supporting hazardous waste management throughout Kiribati. “Some of the activities that we have planned include healthcare waste management training, the provision of incinerators to Tungaru Hospital on Tarawa and London Hospital on Kiritimati, and asbestos removal works at four locations in South Tarawa.”
During the visit to Tarawa, PacWaste will also launch an E-waste pilot project through which training will be provided in how to safely extract and export valuable or hazardous materials from old electronic and computer equipment.
The Third PacWaste Steering Committee Meeting meets this week from 19 – 22 October, 2015, attended by representatives from Cook Islands, Federated States or Micronesia, Fiji, Kiribati, Republic of the Marshall Islands, Nauru, Niue, Palau, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu, with delegates from the European Union, SPREP, the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat (PIFS) and observers from New Zealand’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFAT).