Global Digest of Waste Management

World

Why this document?

Humanitarian operations are associated with the generation of waste along the entire supply chain and include items such as: packaging material at warehouses, hazardous fleet management waste, e-waste at office premises, used relief items, medical waste in health facilities, among others. The Circular Economy model leverages the power of the Humanitarian Green Procurement approach to reduce waste generation in quantity and complexity at the sourcing stage. It aims to extend the use of relief items in end-of-life management by identifying options to reuse, repurpose, recycle materials or, as a last resort, properly dispose of them. One of the key questions for any humanitarian organization when dealing with items that no longer have use is: What we have to do with them? What are the minimum environmental standards we must comply with? And who is responsible for what?

According to humanitarian standards and donor environment requirements, humanitarian organizations are committed to mainstream environmental considerations into humanitarian operations, including the reduction and management of waste. Simultaneously, these humanitarian organizations are obligated to adhere to national waste management regulations in the countries of operation, often derived from global and regional regulations, which has an impact on the entire humanitarian supply chains during emergency operations as displayed in Figure 1. However, in many of the emergency-affected countries, despite having country-specific regulations in place, national stakeholders’ capacity to enforce waste management legislation is significantly low. Additionally, the lack of the necessary systems and infrastructure to effectively collect and manage solid waste poses concrete challenges to humanitarian organizations, not only in terms of identifying appropriate options for recovering and properly disposing of locally generated waste, but also in understanding the minimum environmental standards related to solid waste that must be followed.