UN Economic and Social Development
Division for Sustainable Development

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CSD-18 Thematic Seminar Series: Waste Management

12 January 2010 (10:00 am until 1:00 pm)
New York, USA, UNHQ - Conference Room 2

E-Discussion

Following the seminar held at UN Headquarters, the DSD invites you to participate in an e-discussion on solid and hazardous waste management. The e-discussion will continue in exploring some of the main issues raised in the presentations and discussion during the seminar.

E-Discussion Aim

This e-discussion aims to bring together experts, practitioners, and policymakers from within and outside the UN system to identify challenges and highlight solutions to implementing sustainable development in the area of waste management. Your knowledge and contributions will help to lay the groundwork for thematic discussions on this issue during the 18th session of the Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD-18) in May 2010.

Discussion Threads

Below are e-discussion threads established on LinkedIn. If you are not already a member of the DSD LinkedIn group, please register by clicking here .

• Q1: How can we improve public waste management utilities in developing countries?
  In developing countries, public waste management utilities play a major role in addressing the issues related to waste management, but their performance is often not up to the mark. Why have these utilities not been able to make best use of available knowledge concerning innovative and successful practices in integrated waste management? In practice, can these barriers be overcome--and if yes, how?
• Q2: How can we prevent illegal dumping of e-waste?
  Independent certification programs such as the e-Stewards Standard for Responsible Recycling and Reuse of Electronic Equipment and policies promoting extended producers responsibility (EPR) provide examples of viable solutions that assure consumers of sound disassembly of e-waste and prohibit exporting. What other market-based mechanisms could be used to prevent illegal dumping of e-waste in developing countries?
• Q3: What new and emerging technologies can be used to convert waste to energy?
  In nature, nothing is wasted because everything is useful. What is waste to one system gets reprocessed and reused by another and becomes useful again, adding to resource efficiency. What new and emerging technologies can developing countries rely upon or feasibly access in converting waste to energy and resources?
• Q4: Sound management of nuclear waste by 2020?
  The Johannesburg Plan of Implementation calls for achieving the environmentally sound management of hazardous waste by 2020. Apart from a lack of resources and the need for better infrastructure, what are the main obstacles to meeting this goal? How should radioactive nuclear waste be safely managed?