STOP THE TAP: UNEP and UN-Habitat Collaboration on Marine Litter Prevention and City’s Waste Management
Top 50 Land-Based Marine Litter Hotspots in Africa and South Asia and City Waste Assessment for Infrastructure Investment Gaps
In 2019, Waste Wise Cities Programme of United Nations Human Settlements Programme, (UN-Habitat), WasteAware and the University of Leeds supported by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the Global Partnership on Marine Litter (GPML), jointly conducted a GIS-based modelling to identify 50 land-based marine litter hotspots in Africa and South Asia as well as municipal solid waste assessments to identify infrastructure investment gaps. This was based on the concept of SDG indicator 11.6.1, “proportion of municipal solid waste collected and managed in controlled facilities out of total municipal solid waste generated, by the city”. The methodology to assess this indicator was developed by UN-Habitat and crystallised as Waste Wise Cities Tool (WaCT).
The GIS-based SPOT model (Spatio-temporal quantification of Plastic pollution Origins and Transportation) developed by the University of Leeds, uses available municipal solid waste management data, being compatible with inputs from the SDG indicator 11.6.1, and local geological and meteorological factors to identify the hotspots. Here a ‘marine litter hotspot’ is defined as a municipality with a comparatively high amount of plastic waste predicted to enter the marine environment from waste generated within that municipality.
Results showed that the prominent regions containing marine litter hotspots are the West African coast, the Delta area between West Bengal, India to Bangladesh, and South India. Karachi and Dar es Salaam are the top marine litter hotspots. Cairo-Alexandria metropolis and Tunis have also been identified as small marine litter hotspots.
Figure 1. Map shows results of application of SPOT global hotspot model for the identification of municipalities with high contribution to marine litter in Africa and South Asia. Circles state municipalities and radius is proportional to the leakage amount (Graph source: UN-Habitat and University of Leeds).
Top five marine litter hotspots in Africa and South Asia
- Tanzania - Dar es Salaam
- Nigeria – Lagos
- Pakistan – Karachi
- Liberia – Montserrado
- Cote d'Ivoire - Abidjan
In addition to this, city waste assessments using the WaCT and the Waste Flow Diagram, were conducted in Kenya and the Seychelles to guide investments in waste infrastructure for marine litter and microplastics reduction. Waste Flow Diagram is a novel field observation-based tool to estimate plastic leakage from municipal solid waste management system, and was financed by BMZ and developed by GIZ under the scientific coordination of Dr Costas Velis at the University of Leeds in close collaboration with Eawag-Sandec and Wasteaware.
In Mombasa, Kenya, it was found that 3.7 kg/capita/year of plastic is leaking into water bodies per year, and immediate action is needed to improve the municipal solid waste management system. Some of the reasons for the stream of waste entering the water bodies were identified: poor infrastructure in waste collection and transportation, lack of financial resources, lack of licensing system for Community-based Organizations (CBOs, are often collecting waste in informal settlements), widespread use of non-woven bags that cannot be recycled, free market, lack of environmental and health awareness, and lack of operational and environmental standards of the designated disposal sites. A local stakeholder workshop identified the following major interventions:
- Source separation (wet/dry)
- Awareness raising and education
- Strengthening both private companies and CBOs as well as introduction of network of transfer stations to improve waste collection rates
- Investment in transfer and recovery facilities
- Disposal site operation improvement through compaction
In Mahe, Seychelles, 98% of waste is collected and managed, leaving around 4 tonnes uncollected per day. Nevertheless, the island is in need of immediate interventions in order to ensure a sustainable waste management system in the long run, as 97% of waste is landfilled and the landfills are becoming full. The country has already put in place a deposit refund levy system for PET and cans to foster recovery of resources, however recycling percentages are low. Further possible interventions include:
- Introducing source separation of biodegradable and dry waste, as biodegradable waste represents, with 48%, the largest fraction entering the landfills. The biodegradable waste can then be composted in an existing appropriate facility, while the dry recyclables can be further sorted and prepared for market.
- Shaping of the framework conditions in the waste management sector, in particular the financial framework conditions and incentives, in order to enable these operations to function effectively.
- Exploring Extended Producer Responsibility systems for other fractions than PET and cans.
- Introducing anaerobic digestion with biogas extraction for the biodegradable waste.
- Improving landfill management with daily compaction, litter fence and effective cover material.
- Introducing a waste management fee for both commercial and households and forming an association of recyclers to give the industry a stronger voice.
Recommended Next Steps:
- Scaling up of the GIS hotspot modelling to other regions as well as a global analysis is needed to understand the magnitude of the impact of mismanaging municipal solid waste on marine plastic pollution.
- Conducting more city assessments using the Waste Wise Cities Tool and WFD to clarify the waste flow and leakage, identify policy intervention areas and infrastructure investment gaps in the waste management systems of selected hotspot cities.
- Formulating regional or city-wide project proposals that covers policy change and infrastructure investments cases.
- Potentially these assessments could be linked with UNEP/IUCN hotspot activities and feed into a waste data collaborative. This work feeds into the national source inventory work that UNEP is undertaking, through the GPML, for national action plan development. This approach aims to provide opportunities for the incorporation of various tools including the WWCT and various other models.
The GPML is collaborating with UN-Habitat to leverage the work of the city networks of Waste Wise Cities and African Clean Cities Platform in which member cities have committed to improve their solid waste management. UN-Habitat has already conducted a number of capacity development and training sessions on sustainable solid waste management for the officers from member cities.
Learn more about the work of Waste Wise Cities and African Clean Cities Platform.
