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United Nations Environment Programme
Division of Technology, Industry and Economics

GPWM - Background

Waste generation rates have been increasing rapidly due to urbanization and industrialization. Per capita waste generation rates in many developing countries have now crossed the one-kilogram per day mark. In most OECD countries, municipal solid waste generation rates are slightly above one-kilogram per capita. Moreover, the population growth and urbanization in developing countries is very high in comparison to OECD countries. In year 2000, when world population crossed 6 billion mark, more than 5 billion people were living in developing countries as in OECD countries population growth since 1990s is about 0.7% and urbanization rate is around 1% while the world urbanization rate stands at 2.5% and it is projected that by 2015, more than 50% world population will be living in urban centres.

As a result, overall waste generation amount is also much higher than most developed countries (OECD countries produce about 770 million tonnes of municipal waste and 120 million tonnes of hazardous waste against world total of about 1.7 to 1.9 billion tonnes of municipal waste and 490 million tonnes of hazardous waste) . Industrial waste generation rates are also very high as most of the industries are primary industries producing raw materials for industrial production. Furthermore, due to improved living standards, improved healthcare and due to globalization, a number of new waste streams have emerged, especially e-waste and hazardous waste. Moreover, traditionally waste is considered as source of income, especially for scavengers. Recently, waste has also become an important replacement for conventional sources of energy and material.

The following pressing trends in waste generation are becoming a major challenge:

Cities are facing an increasing growth in population, and shares in GDP growth, resulting in – among other things – increasing quantities of waste being generated.
Industrialization and economic growth has produced more amounts of waste, including hazardous and toxic wastes.
There is a growing understanding of the negative impacts that wastes have had on the local environment (air, water, land, human health etc.) and also on climate change.
Complexity, costs and coordination of waste management has necessitated multi-stakeholder involvement in every stage of the waste management. This calls for an integrated approach to waste management.
Governments and stakeholders are now looking at waste as a business opportunity, (a) to extract valuable resources contained within it that can still be used and (b) to safely process and dispose wastes with a minimum impact on the environment.
Valuable habitats and biodiversity are being threatened with improper management of waste.

Conventional waste management systems were not designed for either of these trends - increased waste generation rates and new and special waste streams. Such systems in many developing countries were also not based on 3R principles (reduce, reuse, and recycle) as the per capita generation rates were low, and scavengers picked up almost all recyclable waste. Furthermore, awareness for resource recovery and the industries utilizing waste as a resource was also low. However, changing waste generation patterns and composition – and its resultant problems have led to higher awareness for resource augmentation and recycling. Therefore, there is a clear need for strategies to redesign conventional waste management systems in such a way that it can effectively and efficiently handle growing amounts of waste with diversified waste streams and the strategy for Integrated Solid Waste Management should also incorporate the 3R Principles and thus promote Resource Efficiency and toxic free materials cycles.

These facts, among others, have position waste as now one of the top priority issues, as evident from the current focal areas of the UN Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD) and from the initiatives on waste of many international, national and local organizations. Additionally, waste management has been taken as a priority area under Climate Change actions, especially to tap on the reduction of non-CO2 emissions and to offset the use of fossil fuels by energy from waste.

To support the above mentioned international efforts as well as the implementation of the Millennium Development Goals, the UNEP GC decision 25/8 on Waste; the Bali Declaration on “Waste Management for Human Health and Livelihoods” of the 9th Conference of Parties (COP) under Basel Convention and CSD 18 on Waste, UNEP in partnership with other organizations proposed to launch a Global Partnership on Waste Management (GPWM) to advance work on specific focal areas under waste management.

Worshop on Global Partnership on Waste Management in Geneva In this regard, initial consultations were held with inter-governmental organizations, national governments from developed and developing countries, and civil society during a Consultation Workshop on Waste Management, in cooperation with the Secretariat of Basel Convention (SBC) in Geneva on 30 November – 1 December 2009 in Geneva. During the Geneva meeting, the concept of Global Platform on Waste Management was discussed. Thereafter, several follow-up discussions and presentations were held since then including a Special Event on Waste Management, in cooperation with Government of Indonesia during UNEP GCSS-XI/GMEF in Bali on 25 February 2010.

During these discussions, one suggestion, which came out strongly, was to avoid duplication of efforts and it seems the original idea of launching a Global Platform would be duplicating some of the efforts of other initiatives and programmes. Hence, the idea of umbrella partnership was evolved to provide the coordinating mechanism to the current initiatives and programmes and to fill the gaps by supporting additional activities. This led to modify the original platform with few actors onboard doing the activities and develop a Global Partnership on Waste Management to promote holistic approach, coordination, and efficiency and efficacy of resources by avoiding duplication of activities. The partners would continue to carry out their activities as lead members of respective focal areas and they will get benefit of each other’s actions, activities and knowledge.

Based on the feedback during these consultation workshops/meetings, side/special events and presentations, the framework document for GPWM was revised for the 2nd Consultation Workshop (18-19 November 2010 at Osaka – Japan).

workshop on global Partnership on waste management in Osaka The Osaka meeting was attended by governments, international organizations, and civil society (private sector associations and academia). The participants discussed the progress made since the first meeting in Geneva and recognize the UNEP work done on the agreed next steps, including formulation and launching of Information Platform on Waste Management Additionally, UNEP, in line with GC Decision 25/8, also carried out various projects on integrated solid waste management, converting waste plastics into a resource, converting waste agricultural biomass into a resource, E-waste management, waste and climate change, and capacity building at national and regional level with training materials and guidelines.

The participants/partners reviewed and discussed the framework of the GPWM and provided para-wise comments. Post-meeting comments and comments from other potential partners were also received after the workshop. Comments from UNEP CPR (Committee of Permanent Representatives) were also received during its meeting on 7th December 2010. Based on all of these comments, the framework has developed to its current form. Further revisions are expected based on further discussions and consultations.

In February 2011, UNEP Governing Council, during its 26th session, noted the launch of the Global Partnership on Waste Management under GC.26/L.2.