Responding to a Global Issue

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Responding to a Global Issue

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The Challenge
Managing waste is a key role for local governments world-wide. Doing so in a way that supports economic, environmental and social sustainability requires the application of best management practices in solid waste reduction, diversion and disposal.

While waste management services are most often the responsibility of local and regional governments, waste generation is influenced by practices, such as product design and packaging, which have significant international implications. Similarly, the impacts of waste management on the environment, including climate change and human health, have global consequences.

Key elements of the approach
Metro’s new solid waste management plan contains initiatives to work nationally and internationally in addressing solid waste management challenges. A national marketing council in Canada is envisaged, as is the establishment of international partnerships.

As a first step, Metro Vancouver intends to invite participation from other cities to further develop the proposal, and to engage the UCLG World Congress in defining key issues as they relate to sustainable solid waste management.

Metro Vancouver is also exploring how it might provide resources that would allow it to act as a secretariat for a committee or working group formed to advance this initiative.

Responding to a Global Issue

Sustainable Solid Waste Management: A Metro Vancouver Proposal

WHAT WE PROPOSE

Recognizing the interconnectedness of local waste management practices and global impacts, and seeking to capitalize on existing expertise, Metro Vancouver proposes to:

Explore collaborative processes to compile and share local and municipal government efforts in the research and implementation of proven solid waste management best practices, including diversion and disposal options and business models
Create and support a global partnership to foster incentives and regulations that promote the design of products that reflect cradle-to-cradle principles.

DESIRED OUTCOMES

If successful, Metro Vancouver’s proposal would lead to establishment of an international clearinghouse for best management practices in sustainable solid waste management. Best practices would encompass waste diversion (reduce, re-use and recycle) as well as waste disposal, and would offer proven strategies in the areas of:

Governance structures
Private and public sector participation
Technology and design
Regulations
Financial models
Communications, education and awareness building
Behaviour change
Protection of public health
Climate change mitigation

WHO WE ARE

Metro Vancouver is Canada’s third-largest metropolitan region. A confederation of 24 local authorities, Metro Vancouver provides core utility services – drinking water, sewerage and drainage, and solid waste management – as well as regional planning and political leadership on behalf of the region’s 2.4 million residents. Metro Vancouver and its member municipalities currently divert 55 percent of the more than three million tonnes of waste produced in the region each year. Metro’s new solid waste management plan commits the region to:

improve reduction, reuse and recycling efforts to increase the diversion rate to 70 percent by 2015, striving for 80 percent by 2020
recover materials and energy from wastes that cannot be recycled
responsibly managing residuals that remain.

HOW YOU CAN CONTRIBUTE

Metro Vancouver has lots to share, and lots to learn, in
managing solid waste. That is undoubtedly true of most
other local and regional governments across the globe.
We hope you too have experiences to share, and support
Metro Vancouver in its efforts to reduce and responsibly
manage waste.

Join us in responding to a global issue.
To find out more please contact:
heather.schoemaker@metrovancouver.org