Muhammad Hammad

For a better future, we have to reduce the waste, reduce its complexity, and reduce the leakage of legacy pollutants into the environment. All stakeholders—public, private, and civil society—must work together to reduce waste. Recyclability and accountability need to be ensured. The safety and quality of the livelihoods of people who work with waste need to be prioritized to ensure a just transition with social and environmental justice at its core.

The three scenarios explored in this report underscore that if change does not happen at speed and scale, humanity will face unmanageable quantities of waste with potentially irreversible impacts on biodiversity, human health, and climate change. Thus, alongside improving waste management capacity—particularly in places where waste generation is increasing rapidly—all parts of society need to focus on moving towards zero waste and circular economy practices.

This report is intended to be a guide for policymakers, governments, industry, and international organizations, providing knowledge, insights, and actionable steps that can be taken toward a less wasteful world. It does not offer a blueprint nor a single route to the goal, since every country will have its own contextual, socioeconomic, and cultural preferences and priorities.

Industry invests in following leadership and direction from the government. The following recommendations therefore focus on the shape of that leadership, including how governments and industry can engage to create the enabling conditions for a circular economy, and ultimately zero-waste societies.

Multinational Development Banks, Donors and Non-Profit Organizations

• Need to raise awareness and the importance of waste management and reduction of waste.
• Identify proven solutions and implement them in different cities, countries and regions.
• Openly share the lessons learned to avoid failures.
• Require governments, municipalities, and other partners to collect gender-disaggregated data on experiences with and impacts of waste, to better inform policies and other interventions.

National governments

• Legislate for the waste hierarchy; pursue all opportunities to encourage waste reduction and circular economy initiatives at a national and sub-national level, for example by introducing incentives for zero waste service delivery models, and modulated fees that promote waste reduction in producer responsibility schemes.
• Integrate policies for waste management and circular economies to prioritize waste reduction and maximize the value of secondary resources within society.
• Use national legislation to protect the rights of the informal waste sector and ensure their support and involvement in developing waste management services.
• Legislate for equal access to a waste management service; guide municipalities in how to provide waste services economically and efficiently, including by encouraging citizens to reduce waste, reuse, and recycle within the home.
• Guide municipalities in waste management system design, ensuring inclusion and representation from women and the informal sector, and that systems are tailored for the needs of the local community.

Municipalities

• Cooperate between municipalities to share and replicate good practices and achieve economies of scale in service delivery.
• Recognize the specific experience and expertise of both women and the informal sector to advance waste reduction and involve them in waste management service design.
• Lead by example in the community by identifying opportunities to drive resource efficiency; raise awareness through positive and targeted messaging; and make it easy for residents and local businesses to reduce waste and participate in waste segregation programs.
• Encourage residents to reduce waste and where possible manage waste in the home, for example through home composting, to reduce the cost of municipal waste management.

Producers and Retailers

• Recognize the vital role and responsibility of the private sector in waste prevention; take responsibility for waste generation and respond to society’s demands and needs to reduce the resource-use footprint of commercial activities.
• Pursue business models that achieve financial savings through resource efficiency, such as refill, deposit return, and design-for-recycling.
• Support governments with efforts to regulate waste generation, recognizing that regulation creates a level playing field and gives certainty; favour regulation over voluntary targets which only add to uncertainty; avoid greenwashing.

Citizens

• Buy only those things that are not over-packed, avoid single-use things or have a short lifespan, and use refills so can be returned to where they exist.
• Try to reuse and recycle at home to reduce waste that overcomes the burden on municipalities.
• Try to separate the waste food and garden waste and residual waste.
• Promote that kind of business that supports zero waste.