Webinar: Tackling the global waste emergency: how to extend services to the billions worldwide without access to waste collection?

Everyone has a right to basic services (SDG 1.4), one of which is regular and reliable solid waste collection. Yet despite much progress, according to the latest UNEP estimates (GWMO2024), some 2.7 billion people worldwide still lack access to collection services; in addition, of municipal solid waste that is collected, a significant proportion is open dumped or burned. This constitutes an on-going global waste emergency that has severe impacts, locally on public health and environmental pollution, and globally on climate heating and plastics pollution.

This webinar explores both the problem and potential solutions. How much would extending waste services to all reduce plastics pollution? The conventional top-down development approach of driving change through regulatory standards and infrastructure investment is making steady progress in much of the Global South but has had little success in extending services to underserved communities in lower income countries. So how to refocus development efforts, AND implement a parallel, bottom-up community-led approach? How can the services that people need be provided, while at the same time creating sustainable livelihoods? What should sustainable waste and resource management look like for the world’s poorest communities who are currently unserved or underserved, and how that can be achieved?

Speakers: 
Sarahjane Widdowson (Moderator) - Chair of CIWM London & Southern Counties Centre, Trustee of WasteAid.
Professor David C Wilson - Imperial College London. Author of first UNEP Global Waste Management Outlook (GWMO) that identified the global waste emergency.
Dr Joshua Cottom - University of Leeds. Lead author of September 2024 Nature paper which identifies uncollected waste as the largest source of plastics pollution.
Dr Lucy Stevens - Practical Action. Developing and implementing a people-centred approach to waste management in low-income countries.
Maya Zaatar - Resources and Waste Advisory Group (RWA). A young professional working around the world to extend waste services to underserved communities.
Michelle Wilson - WasteAid. Delivering an inclusive circular economy so people and planet can thrive. 

To view the speaker's full biographies, please click here. 

HOW TO BOOK
To register for this webinar, please sign in or create an account - you can complete this process to the right-hand side of your screen. For a seamless booking experience, please use Google Chrome as your browser. 

If you have any queries, please email events@ciwm.co.uk