{"id":312321,"date":"2019-11-19T06:06:10","date_gmt":"2019-11-18T20:06:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=312321"},"modified":"2019-11-19T06:06:10","modified_gmt":"2019-11-18T20:06:10","slug":"where-does-waste-go-on-a-small-island","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/where-does-waste-go-on-a-small-island\/","title":{"rendered":"Where does waste go on a small island?"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Behind a family home not far from downtown Apia, a small mountain of computer cases teeters in the tropical sun at over 3 meters high. Nearby, stacks of thousands of circuit boards create rolling green foothills. Steel drums, plastic buckets and fraying carboard boxes dot this electronic landscape\u2014overflowing reservoirs of connectors, transistors and wires.<\/p>\n

A practiced and callused hand is nearby, forcibly and systematically ripping apart an old computer body with a pair of pliers and a screwdriver, scattering electronic paraphernalia in all directions.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s dismantled thousands of computers in the last couple years,\u201d says Marina Keil, the president of the Samoa Recycling and Waste Management Association, gesturing at the piles surrounding us. \u201cHe could do more, but he\u2019d need power tools. Ever since we started importing electronics into Samoa, we\u2019ve never had any leave. But only 5 to 10% of e-waste comes to recyclers like this. The rest goes into landfill. Unfortunately, e-waste takes a lot of time and requires a lot of manual labor to process.\u201d<\/p>\n

Across town, Keil leads us into the office of one of Samoa\u2019s three waste tire collectors. Out back the collector has his own waste mountain. Some 10,000 tires are piled high. He has collected these for the last 10 years but has had to recently stop stockpiling these waste tires\u2014he has run out of space.<\/p>\n

A few kilometers away, the manager of an auto repair shop is facing a similar problem, but with oil. Behind the repair bays there are dozens of barrels of old oil sitting under a corrugated aluminum roof. He has stockpiled it because there is nowhere for it to go.<\/p>\n

\u201cWaste oil has been accumulating for forever,\u201d Keil says. \u201cAcross Samoa, there is some 400,000 liters of stockpiled engine oil sitting around. Currently everyone is stockpiling. Some illegally dump it. It\u2019s just sitting here with nowhere to go.\u201d<\/p>\n

Samoa is facing a problem that plagues small islands states\u2014where does all the waste go?<\/p>\n

\u201cHere in Samoa and other islands as well there\u2019s no recycling that goes on. Pretty much we collect and process it for export to countries overseas,\u201d Keil says. \u201cBut it\u2019s hard for us to export because of the operational and the freight cost.\u201d<\/p>\n

It is precisely this obstacle that a\u00a0new partnership called Moana Taka\u00a0is designed to tackle. The partnership between the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme and China Navigation Company, part of the Swire Group, provides a way to offload recyclable waste from Samoa and other Pacific countries to recycling facilities abroad. The UN Environment Programme helped facilitate the agreement.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s an exciting public-private partnership,\u201d says Sefanaia Nawadra, the Head of UNEP\u2019s Pacific Office. \u201cPacific island countries that cannot store or treat waste properly and are unable to afford to ship recyclable waste can use Swire vessels to transport it to ports where these facilities exist\u2014for free. It\u2019s a great example of cooperation between governments, civil society and the private sector.\u201d<\/p>\n

Waste such as plastics, aluminum cans, oil and ozone depleting substances are all eligible for transport under the partnership.<\/p>\n

There are 21 countries and territories participating: American Samoa, Cook Islands, Commonwealth of Northern Mariana Islands, Guam, Fiji, French Polynesia, Kiribati, Republic of the Marshall Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Nauru, New Caledonia, Niue, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Timor Leste, Tonga, Tuvalu, Vanuatu, and Wallis and Futuna.<\/p>\n

So far, Pacific island nations have been able to send over 100 tons of waste to be recycled through the Moana Taka partnership.<\/p>\n

Certain obstacles remain.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re lucky to be part of the Moana Taka initiative,\u201d says Keil. \u201cFreight is one of the problems, but collection of things like waste oil is also an issue. Another one is identifying companies and facilities offshore that can take these wastes for safe recycling and disposal. We\u2019ve been lucky to have the help of UNEP in that.\u201d<\/p>\n

UNEP has also provided 100 waste oil collection sites and is working to support collection of other types of waste. UNEP is using its networks especially in Asia to identify waste recycling companies and facilities to work with the Moana Taka Partnership.<\/p>\n

But attitudes and behaviors still need to change, says Keil. \u201c99.5% of plastic bottles go to landfill. Many Samoans grew up burning rubbish. In the long run, we need sustainable solutions.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s important that we teach our young ones the 3 Rs\u2014reduce, reuse, recycle\u2014and when they grow up they\u2019ll make better green choices.\u201d (www.unenvironment.org)<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Behind a family home not far from downtown Apia, a small mountain of computer cases…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-312321","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312321","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/28"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=312321"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312321\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=312321"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=312321"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=312321"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}