Waste Management Outlook for Latin America and The Caribbean Launched

The publication has been developed by a team of experts coordinated by Mr. Savino, who had the support from other ISWA Members, like Magda Correal, National Member Representative in Colombia, who was in charge of one of the chapters, and the Vice President Carlos Silva Filho, who was a member of the Steering Committee.

According to the Report, a third of all waste generated in cities of Latin America and the Caribbean ends up in open dumps or in the environment, polluting soil, water and air, and threatening the health of the population.

As one of the main messages of the report, UN Environment urges countries to progressively close dumpsites. The publication also highlights areas of opportunity for the region, such as the special management of organic waste and the potential of the circular economy principles.

Those messages, which are aligned to ISWA???s flagship campaigns and positions, have also been registered at the final Ministerial Declaration, with a commitment by the governmental representatives to improve the efforts to reduce marine litter, accelerate climate action and advance towards sustainable production and consumption.

Among other objectives, the commitment aims to develop better efforts to implement national and regional plans to beat marine litter, investigate and develop new materials as an alternative to plastics, and create common strategies to progressively close dumpsites and end open burning. On that specific purpose the countries required UN Environment, as the Secretary of the Forum, to create a working group to be dedicated to this agenda.

???The results of the XXI Ministerial Forum of Environment from Latin America and Caribbean have been very positive and supportive to the ISWA global agenda, with direct focus in two of our current campaigns: Close Dumpsites and Beat Marine Pollution. The Waste Management Outlook coordinated by Atilio Savino, has been instrumental to reach the commitment made by the Ministers, giving ISWA a relevant role towards better waste management worldwide???, observed Carlos Silva Filho, ISWA Vice President.

To read the Waste Outlook for Latin America and Caribbean, prepared with support of ISWA Latin America RDN and ARS, ISWA National Member in Argentina, please click on the links below:

Full Report