Huhtamaki and WasteAid announce global partnership to drive community-level circular economy innovation in key locations

Global food packaging leader Huhtamaki and international charity WasteAid have announced a €900,000 (£800,000) partnership to drive community-level circular economy innovation in Vietnam, India and South Africa for a two-year period.  To mark its 100-year anniversary, Huhtamaki is donating €3 million to global sustainability initiatives with a local impact – acting today, educating for tomorrow and funding innovation for the future, making a difference where it matters most to help address global sustainability challenges and build circular economy initiatives.

The Huhtamaki funded project will provide financial support to WasteAid to deliver education and training on waste management and circular systems. It will enable WasteAid to work with key stakeholders in Johannesburg (South Africa), Ho Chi Minh City (Vietnam) and Guwahati (Assam, India) to fast-track and amplify local solutions that create value and reduce waste and pollution, in line with the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.

Ceris Turner-Bailes, WasteAid Chief Executive said: “The shift towards a circular economy offers vast potential for global development and WasteAid is proud to be at the forefront of that change.

“This major partnership between WasteAid and Huhtamaki offers the opportunity for greater impact and is a huge milestone in the development of WasteAid as an organisation. We’re delighted to be working with the Huhtamaki team and look forward to delivering this groundbreaking initiative over the coming two years.”

President and CEO of Huhtamaki Charles Héaulmé said: “We want to make a difference, where it matters most. We want to support local communities concretely, by providing education and training on waste management and circular systems. Delivering on our ambitious sustainability agenda requires collaboration across the value chain.

“We chose to partner with WasteAid as it is already making a positive impact on plastic pollution. An illustration of this is their project in West Africa, where trainees are turning plastic waste into useful products like paving tiles. Very quickly the local team prevented a million plastic bags from being burned, or reaching the ocean. A year after, 55 families continue to collect, sort and process plastic waste, reducing pollution and carbon emissions and protecting the health of their community in Gunjur, Gambia. We will be learning from our partnership with WasteAid and will share our insights with global stakeholders as part of our sustainability journey to deliver on our 2030 strategy.”

The project – WasteAid will bring its expertise in sustainable waste management to share skills, develop business ideas and create end-markets for recyclable materials, driving innovation and developing a new generation of green entrepreneurs locally. The two-year programme will be focused on educating diverse local communities via a cloud-based learning platform, networking events, training programmes and will seek to inspire innovative sustainable solutions through local innovation competitions.

The programme will accelerate knowledge transfer and cultivate great ideas within communities most affected by poor waste management. Developing alternatives to dumping and burning of waste makes homes more liveable, reduces health problems and builds stronger local economies.

Ray Georgeson, Interim Executive Support at WasteAid will continue to manage the partnership until a dedicated project director is appointed.

Written by Zoë Lenkiewicz

WasteAid is a UK registered charity set up by waste management professionals to tackle the global waste crisis. 2 billion people do not have their waste collected and 3 billion do not have a decent disposal site, and as a consequence waste ends up in rivers and ultimately the oceans.

WasteAid works with communities in low-income countries to address the root causes of climate change and marine plastic pollution.

WasteAid shares waste management knowledge and skills with communities in low-income countries; trains people to become self-employed recycling entrepreneurs; and influences decision-makers and the donor community to increase investment in waste management.

Huhtamaki is a key global player in sustainable food on-the-go and food on-the-shelf packaging solutions. Our innovative products help billions of consumers around the world make responsible lifestyle choices every day. Today, packaging plays a significant role in food safety and convenience. We are committed to making packaging more circular and we embed sustainability in everything we do. We are focused on achieving carbon neutral production and having all our products designed to be recyclable, compostable or reusable by 2030.

With 100 years of history and a strong Nordic heritage we operate in 35 countries and 81 sites around the world. Our 19,000 employees are working to deliver smart next generation packaging. Our 2019 net sales totaled EUR 3.4 billion. Huhtamaki Group has its head office in Espoo, Finland and the parent company Huhtamäki Oyj is listed on Nasdaq Helsinki Ltd. Find out more about our Sustainability Action Plan and our ambition at www.huhtamaki.com.

NO TIME TO WASTE

• One person dies every 30 seconds in developing countries from diseases caused by plastic pollution and rubbish
• Sir David Attenborough backs report saying ‘it’s one of the first to highlight the impacts of plastic pollution…on world’s poorest people’
• Open-air burning of plastic and rubbish in developing countries adds to carbon emissions, contributing to climate change
• Multinational companies selling single-use plastic in developing countries must make fundamental changes to business models to halt health crisis

Download the full report (PDF)

One person is dying every 30 seconds in developing countries from diseases and illnesses caused by plastic pollution and uncollected rubbish dumped or burnt near homes.

The new figures were released in a report called No Time to Waste: Tackling the Plastic Pollution Crisis Before it’s Too Late by international relief and development agency Tearfund, in collaboration with conservation charity Fauna & Flora International (FFI), the Institute of Development Studies and waste management charity WasteAid. The report looks at the health impact of plastic pollution and rubbish on the world’s poorest people for the first time.

It found that each year between 400,000 and a million people (at the upper end one person every 30 seconds) are dying in developing countries from illnesses and diseases like diarrhoea, malaria and cancers caused by living near uncollected waste and plastic pollution.

The report calls on multinational companies to fundamentally change their business models by committing to reporting the number of single-use plastic items they distribute in developing countries by 2020, and halving this by 2025.

“This report is one of the first to highlight the impacts of plastic pollution not just on wildlife but also on the world’s poorest people,” Sir David, a vice president at Fauna & Flora International, said.

“It is high time we turn our attention fully to one of the most pressing problems of today – averting the plastic pollution crisis – not only for the health of our planet, but for the wellbeing of people around the world.”

“We need leadership from those who are responsible for introducing plastic to countries where it cannot be adequately managed, and we need international action to support the communities and governments most acutely affected by this crisis.”

Globally two billion people, (one in four), don’t have their rubbish collected, often leading to disease and death. When rubbish isn’t collected it often builds up in rivers and causes flooding, which can lead to diarrhoea and a host of infectious diseases.

Often the only other way to dispose of waste is to burn it in the streets, with the resulting fumes being extremely damaging to health as well as – in some countries – being the single largest source of carbon emissions, contributing to climate change.

Dr. Ruth Valerio, Global Advocacy & Influencing Director at Tearfund said: “Today Tearfund launches our new Rubbish Campaign, which calls for urgent action from four multinationals – Coca-Cola, Nestlé, PepsiCo and Unilever.

“They sell billions of products in single-use plastic packaging in poorer countries where waste isn’t collected, in the full knowledge that people will have no choice but to burn it, discard it in waterways or live among it.

“The CEOs running these multinationals can no longer ignore the human cost of single-use plastic – fundamental changes to business models are urgently required. There is no time to waste.”

Elisabeth Whitebread, Programme Manager, Marine Plastics for Fauna & Flora International said: “This report is a wake-up call to industry about the interconnected threat that plastic pollution poses to marine and human health. While the findings are shocking, this is not an unsolvable problem.

“As a first step, companies can commit to a full audit of product life cycles, including supply chains, so we can identify where plastic is polluting the environment and bring it to a stop.”

Patrick Schröder, Research Fellow at Institute for Development Studies, said:

“Plastic pollution is damaging our planet and our lives. The current model of ‘take, make, use and dispose’ is unsustainable. Businesses, governments and citizens need to embrace a ‘circular economy’ that promotes sustainable consumption and production and reduces environmental impacts.

“There are a growing number of examples of the circular economy in action – particularly across Africa and Asia – and we need to learn from these initiatives to inform and scale future efforts to tackle this pressing global challenge.”

Zoë Lenkiewicz, Head of Programmes and Engagement at WasteAid added: “The problems caused by plastic packaging waste are universal, with people and wildlife everywhere being seriously affected.

“Large companies place vast amounts of single-use plastic into communities that don’t have waste management, with significant and growing planetary health impacts. As this report shows, we cannot recycle our way out of plastic pollution – we need systemic change.”

Sir David will introduce the report later today at the Wall Street Journal’s CEO Council in London.

Other key facts in the report: (references in the report)

• Every second a double-decker busload of plastic waste is burned or dumped in developing countries.
• Global plastic production emits 400 million tonnes of greenhouses gases each year– more than the UK’s total carbon footprint.
• An estimated 8 –12.7 million tonnes of plastic is entering the oceans every year.
• Every 30 seconds the UK throws away 2 double-decker busloads of plastic waste.
• Living amongst plastic pollution and uncollected waste doubles the incidence of diarrhoeal disease.

Download the full report.

Written by Zoë Lenkiewicz

ENDS

STATISTICS EXPLAINED

The analysis conducted for No Time to Waste: Tackling the Plastic Pollution Crisis Before it’s Too Late was based on published data, academic research and expert opinion for three links between waste and health: air pollution from burnt waste, diarrhoeal disease caused by dumped waste, and mosquito-borne disease caused by dumped waste. This indicated that between 400,000 and 1 million people die each year because of diseases caused by mismanaged waste. One million people a year is approximately one every 30 seconds. The full methodology is described in an annex to the report.

CAMPAIGN

We want the companies (Coca-Cola, Nestlé, PepsiCo and Unilever) to take responsibility for their plastic waste in poorer countries by:

• Report – by 2020 on the number of single-use plastic products they sell
• Reduce – commit to halve the number of these products by 2025
• Recycle – by 2022, ensure one single-use plastic item is collected for every one they sell
• Restore – work with waste pickers to provide employment with dignity.

Tearfund is a Christian relief and development agency and a member of the Disasters’ Emergency Committee. Tearfund has been working around the world for more than 50 years responding to disasters and helping lift communities out of poverty. For more information about the work of Tearfund, please visit www.tearfund.org.

Fauna & Flora International (FFI) (www.fauna-flora.org) FFI protects threatened species and ecosystems worldwide, choosing solutions that are sustainable, based on sound science and that take account of human needs. Operating in more than 40 countries worldwide, FFI saves species from extinction and habitats from destruction, while improving the livelihoods of local people. Founded in 1903, FFI is the world’s longest established international wildlife conservation organisation and a registered charity. Nathan Williams, Press Officer, +44 (0)1223 749 010 or +44 (0)7725 594 205/ nathan.williams@fauna-flora.org

The Institute of Development Studies (IDS) is a global research and learning organisation for equitable and sustainable change. Hannah Corbett, Head of Communications and Engagement, +44 (0)1273 915640/ 07701286978/ h.corbett@ids.ac.uk

WasteAid is a UK registered charity set up by waste management professionals to tackle the global waste crisis. Contact Rose Bradbury, Senior Fundraising & Communications Officer, WasteAid, media@wasteaid.org

Help more people benefit from green recycling jobs in some of the world’s poorest places.

Empower them to keep plastic out of the ocean and create a healthier future for everyone.

On 1 May we launched our UK Aid Match appeal, Widening the Net.

We also celebrated the official launch of our three year partnership with UK waste management company Biffa, who are providing financial support and professional expertise to help WasteAid grow.

WasteAid and Biffa on Sky News

Zoë Lenkiewicz, Head of Programmes and Engagement at WasteAid and Mick Davis, Chief Operating Officer at Biffa, interviewed by Sarah-Jane Mee on Sky Sunrise about the launch of our Proud Partnership and WasteAid’s UK Aid Match campaign, Widening the Net.

Download the press release.

WasteAid in the media

The Times (pictured) and the Brighton Argus also covered the launch event, and  Zoë Lenkiewicz and Mick Davis were interviewed by Radio Reverb, helping our campaign achieve national reach.

Give before 31 July, and all public donations to our Widening the Net appeal will be doubled by the UK government, up to £2 million.

Donate

School children from St Andrew’s in Hove joined us on the promenade for some ocean-themed entertainment provided by the Invisible Circus, alongside a beach hut made of ecobricks made by children at St Mary’s Clayton Le Moors school.

WasteAid’s Widening the Net appeal has attracted UK Aid match funding, which means that all public donations received by 31 July will be doubled by UK government.

Help us make an impact by empowering people in poor parts of the world to capture ocean-bound plastic waste and turn it into useful products! Visit the Widening the Net appeal to find out more.

Donate

The amount of waste we produce is expected to DOUBLE in the next 15-20 years. Where is it going to go?

A growing population, increasing urbanisation, and a shift to a consumer lifestyle are leading to the generation of ever great volumes of solid waste around the world. When our waste isn’t managed properly it can end up in drains and rivers, and eventually makes its way to the sea.

Quick facts:

• More than 90% of the plastic in the sea comes from land based sources.
• Every year, 4-12 million tonnes of mismanaged waste enters the oceans from within 50km of the coast. More than half of this is from five countries in east Asia.
• An additional 0.4-4 million tonnes waste reaches the oceans via rivers. More than 90% of this waste flows along 10 major rivers in Asia and Africa.
• Overall, mismanaged household and business waste in lower-income countries probably accounts for 50-70% by weight of plastics entering the oceans.

This is a major problem, but it is only part of the story.

With two billion people living without waste collection and three billion without controlled waste disposal, the poor management of solid waste is a global crisis.

Poor management of solid waste leads to a range of negative impacts on:

• The environment – polluting rivers and wells; causing local air pollution and climate change emissions; polluting the oceans with plastics and land, air and water with microplastics; harming wildlife; and blocking drains leading to flooding.
• Human health – burning waste leads to respiratory diseases; the pollution from waste causes childhood stunting; blocked drains exacerbate the spread of water-borne and infectious diseases, flooding and drowning.
• Local economies – healthcare costs a lot more when disease is commonplace; communities experience productivity losses and damage from flooding; tourists stay away; clean-up costs can be significant; and unmanaged waste worsens social inequality.

There is a flip-side…

Whilst badly managed waste represents a threat to human health, the environment and economic development, there are also many opportunities. Improved resource management can help people who are economically marginalised, and there is increasing interest from the global development community as to the opportunities that a more circular approach offers.

International donors are increasingly prioritising actions for the poorest and most marginalised, such as in the UK Department for International Development’s Leave No-One Behind agenda.

A pro-poor, inclusive approach to improve solid waste management would be a win-win:

Providing a vital service to some of the world’s poorest communities would make them a healthier place to live, grow and do business in, whilst creating green jobs.

Importantly, community-led waste management can also help limit climate change and stop plastic polluting our rivers and oceans.

How to improve the lives of the world’s poorest and halve the plastic entering the oceans

To address the global waste crisis, the international community needs to act.

WasteAid and CIWM are calling on the UK Government to:

Fund: Commit to increasing the proportion of aid spent on waste management to at least 3% from its current estimated level of 0.3%;

Champion: Promote the need for increases in aid to waste management within the Commonwealth and G7, for example as part of the blue economy priority; and

Lead: Spearhead negotiation of a binding international treaty to tackle marine plastic pollution, which should have at its core prevention through proper solid waste management, as well as efforts to clean up existing pollution.

Priorities to tackle marine plastic pollution at source:

1. Prioritise technical assistance to improve governance and the enabling environment, establishing multi-stakeholder coordinating bodies and scaling up contextually relevant community-based recycling approaches.
2. Where possible and especially in poorer countries, fund projects that work with local informal waste management approaches to develop sustainable solutions that enable local communities to create value and not rely on continued external support.
3. Avoid inappropriate large-scale, high-cost, high-technology projects, which often threaten waste picker livelihoods, are not suited to waste streams with high organic content and are reliant on very high capacity clients to ensure environmental standards are met.

4. Work with the resource management sector, universities and development groups to:
5. a) Leverage greater investment from the broader international development community and ‘mainstream’ waste;
6. b) Incubate and support novel approaches to delivery of waste services in low income countries;
7. c) Convene opportunities for international partnership and knowledge exchange;
8. d) Share technical guidance and best practice; and
9. e) Avoid the known pitfalls to move confidently towards a more equitable and sustainable future.

Read the WasteAid & CIWM briefing paper in full

On World Water Day (22 March 2018) WasteAid and CIWM issued a call to action to the UK Government with a detailed briefing paper on the relationship between solid waste management and the growing tide of marine plastics pollution.

“From the Land to the Sea” catalogues the impact that poor or non-existent waste collection and management practices in developing countries have on the growing quantity of plastic waste that is entering the oceans every year.

Written by Zoë Lenkiewicz

Now is the time to recognise waste management is vital for global sustainable development

There are more than 7 billion of us, and we’re producing waste every day. A staggering half of that waste isn’t collected, treated or safely disposed of, and it’s causing a global waste crisis.

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) cannot be met unless waste management is addressed as a priority. Failing economic models treat resources as if they were infinite (SDG 12) and consumption patterns favour the disposable. How can we continue with a growing and increasingly urbanised global population without getting waste sorted?

The litter problem on the coast of Guyana, 2010 (Creative Commons 3.0)

The proliferation of plastics has been devastating for the planet and its passengers, both current and future. Three-quarters of the vastest open dumps in the world are on the coast, leaching hazardous materials into our oceans. It’s unlikely that there is a single beach in the world that doesn’t carry the residues of plastic fishing nets, cigarette butts and plastic straws (SDG 14). Large marine mammals are washing up on shore dead, their bellies so full of plastic that they have starved.

Just two generations ago, before the dawn of disposable plastic, people could throw their waste on the ground and it would rot. Not so today, with plastic now clogging up drains and being ingested by livestock. Chemicals seep from immense quantities of dumped waste, poisoning groundwater, streams and rivers. Life on land (SDG 15) can only be healthy when waste is properly managed.

Waste is polluting the air we breathe as well. When people have no waste management services, they can only dump waste in the open – or burn it. Open burning of waste is sadly commonplace. In days gone by, it wasn’t such an issue. But now, with plastics everywhere, the health impacts of open burning are catastrophic (SDG 3). Added to this is the climate change impact of methane and CO2 from poorly managed waste: within ten years dumpsites could be responsible for up to a tenth of manmade greenhouse gases (SDG 13).

The local community burn their waste in a corner of Kibati camp. School desks have been taken out of the nearby school to make room for people now seeking shelter there. (Eddy Mbuyi/Oxfam, Creative Commons 2.0)

If we want clean water and sanitation (SDG 6), we need to be looking at waste. It’s a key vector of disease, and provides abundant breeding grounds for mosquitoes. Women in particular can benefit hugely from improved waste management, through independent earning opportunities (SDG 5) and protecting their families from sickness caused by open dumping and burning.

Food waste, from farm to fork and post-consumer, needs to be cut dramatically. Redistribution of edible food (SDG 2) from supermarkets, restaurants and homes is an obvious first step and one that is thankfully gaining traction. Waste from the manufacture of food products can be fed to animals, and inedible remains converted into biogas and clean renewable energy (SDG 7).

Many children pick recyclable waste from dump sites instead of attending school. Watch the video: India Unheard, Children carry trash not books

SDG 1 aims for No Poverty. 1% of the global urban population make their living from recovering recyclable materials from waste (SDG 8). These informal waste champions provide a valuable and often no-cost service, and it is important that we recognise their role in urban sanitation and resource efficiency (SDG 10). Fair wages and basic employment rights for all waste workers are fundamental to equal, inclusive and sustainable communities.

The rewards of waste management far outweigh the cost. For our communities to prosper as healthy and resilient places to live, governments must urgently invest. Even the poor choose to pay for waste management (or participate in it) when they see its benefits. Producer Responsibility schemes and crucially – fiscal transparency – can help ensure everyone pays their fair share to keep the planet clean (SDG 16).

The formal waste management sector, employing another 20 million globally, is a current hotbed of inspiration and innovation (SDG 9). Attracting millennials, entrepreneurs and industry heavyweights, waste management provides excellent opportunities in science, technology and engineering, humanities, business studies and IT (SDG 4), and is a powerful catalyst for economic growth (SDG 8). The feedstock for an industry based on waste is plentiful.

An estimated 3bn coffee paper cups are thrown away in the UK every year, but it was revealed that fewer than one in 400 is recycled. Photograph: Guardian/Alamy

Sustainable waste management provides ideal opportunities to collaborate and work in partnership (SDG 17) – the wealthy and the poor, the formal and informal, communities, business, governments and the international donor community. Indeed, it is only when we work together that the most logical and valuable answers arise. As we have seen, waste crosses so many other aspects of society. Positive outcomes rely on us joining these dots.

In summary, we can achieve the Global Goals – and we’ll do it much more effectively once we recognise waste management as a powerful driver of sustainable development.

How waste management can help achieve the Global Goals

Written by Zoë Lenkiewicz

Further recommended reading:
• Global Waste Management Outlook UNEP/ISWA 2015
• WasteAid Toolkit for waste management in lower- and middle-income countries 2017