Hello and welcome to the compendium website of guidance to reduce the emission of Unintentional Persistent Organic Pollutants (UPOPs) by improving waste management practices at landfills. Let’s learn together.

Waste
Generation

Packaging, electronics, household cleaners, laboratory chemicals, pesticide containers… our waste streams are becoming increasingly complex. To improve the management of waste, we must first understand what, where, when, why, and how much is being generated. Understanding this is the first step to planning and improving its management.

Source
Segregation

The types of waste generated often require very different management approaches. To ensure the best quality of material is recovered and directed to the most appropriate management option, it is essential to segregate the target material from other wastes as early as possible. Segregating and collecting the target waste material at the point of generation has many benefits, not only for recovery of that material, but for easing the management of other waste streams. But which materials do we prioritise and how do we do it?

Recovery
FOGO Composting

Food Organics and Garden Organics (FOGO) in landfills produce flammable and explosive methane gas (a potent greenhouse gas), and cause challenges to landfill operations. Due to their bulkiness, large branches cannot be easily compacted and tend to become tangled around machines, thus trapping oxygen in waste. If this oxygen builds up in sufficient quantities, it can sustain fires with methane as a fuel, and as a result, can hinder the application of cover material. Organic materials also decompose to generate leachate, which can transport pollutants from other wastes in the landfill into the environment. Composting FOGO therefore provides an alternative solution to the landfilling, dumping and burning of organic waste.

Recovery
Waste Tyres

Waste vehicles tyres are an increasing challenge in SIDS where appropriate waste management options often don’t exist. Banned from landfills, expensive to manage, and breeding grounds for mosquitoes when stockpiled, they often end up catching fire with subsequent UPOPs and short-lived climate pollutants are emitted. Alternatives to stockpiling tyres and risking large scale highly polluting fires are required.

Hazardous Waste
Interim Storage Facility

As there are limited facilities available for the recovery and elimination of hazardous waste in SIDS, many hazardous waste streams must be exported for environmentally sound management. This is best conducted when a critical mass of materials is safely accumulated, packaged and coordinated for compliant shipment. While accumulating and storing the waste, skilled personnel at an appropriate Hazardous Waste Interim Storage Facility are required in country. Specific design and operational considerations are required for such facilities.

Landfill
Operations

Landfills are an essential foundation of SIDS waste management systems. They enable the safe and controlled disposal for residual wastes that cannot be managed by any other means. However, the disposal of waste to landfill sites must be closely controlled and monitored to prevent them from polluting air, land, or water and causing human, animal, or other harm as well as prevent them from filling too quickly (SIDS are short of land for new sites). Managing these sites requires planning, financing, and skilled engineering.