WASTE E-mail Bulletin 60

WASTE E-MAIL BULLETIN 60

Edited by WASTE, Gouda, the Netherlands

January 2008

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First of all WASTE would like to wish all of you a happy New Year.

Please visit our website to see our New Years wish. www.waste.nl

2008 will be an important year for WASTE. First of all the organisation will be celebrating it’s 25th anniversary. Secondly it is the International year of Sanitation, a year where a lot will be happening and involving WASTE and our programmes around sustainable sanitation, such as ISSUE, Rosa and Trust.

So we would like to invite everybody to get involved in waste and sanitation in the year 2008.

Lastly, due to circumstances the WASTE Bulletin has been on hold for some months. Our apologies for this and we will continue our bi-monthly reporting from now on

Verele de Vreede

This is e-mail bulletin 60 from WASTE. The WASTE Bulletin is normally sent out every two months, with information on our organisation, it’s programmes and projects. WASTE’s work has a focus on bottom-up development in relation to recycling, solid waste management, ecological sanitation and knowledge sharing.

Please, feel free to forward this bulletin. Your comments, enquiries and suggestions for other organisations to send this e-mail bulletin to, are very welcome at the following address:

WASTE, attn. Verele de Vreede

Nieuwehaven 201

2801 CW Gouda

the Netherlands

e-mail: vdevreede@waste.nl

fax + 31 (0)182 550313

website: www.waste.nl

The bulletin is sent out via our list server. If you wish to unsubscribe you can send an email to vdevreede@waste.nl requesting to be unsubscribed.

This bulletin is also translated in French by our partner in Mali, CEK. If you prefer the French version please send an email to: cek@afribonemali.net.

Content

1. ISSUE Programme Update: Regional meeting: Asia

2. News from WASTE

1. Leaving of Marga van Rooij

2. Arrival of Helma Ballemans

3. Arrival of David Castillano

4. New interns: Jelle Pieterman, Sule Balci and Evgenia Tasheva

3. Visit Bulgarians to the Netherlands

4. Visit of Asia Pro Eco project to WASTE

5. Mission to Ghana: Assessment of Sanitation Options in Kwanyaku

6. Signing MoU with Wetlands International

7. PPP-ISWM start-up meeting held in Bangkok

8. Publications

1. ISSUE programme update: Programme Board Meeting,

The ISSUE 2 programme is a follow-up of the ISSUE programme. The programme will run until 2010 and is set up to facilitate the realisation of improved sanitation and waste management in 15 districts. Countries where ISSUE 2 is active are: Nicaragua, Surinam, Peru, Costa Rica, India, Philippines, Vietnam, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Mali, Benin, Tanzania, Kenya, Zambia and Malawi.

In November 2007 the ISSUE partners in Asia had a regional meeting, a short report

ISSUE partners meeting in Asia.

As the ISSUE programme is active in 15 countries around the world a need is seen to have meetings in the region so as to review in practical terms implementation of ISSUE 2, identify resources for implementation and identify basic steps for drafting the consortium multi annual plan. The Indian organisation SCOPE hosted the first regional partner meet of Asia. ISSUE partners from Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and India were present. Exchanging information and updating each other on the status of the programme made some common insights and wishes clear. As such it is identified that there is a need for technical assistance to make sustainable sanitation and / or solid waste plans with and for the government. Furthermore, all partners realised the importance of aligning themselves with ongoing government schemes as well as the fact that most beneficiaries can and are willing pay for services. Also various micro-credit schemes were discussed in which the repayment period of loans can be lengthened and with relatively low interest they would still be able to repay the relatively lower monthly instalments. Lastly it was concluded that such meetings were very useful and it is clear that the Asian region will continue organising these events in order to maximise information exchange and to learn from each other.

2. News from WASTE

a. Leaving of Marga van Rooi

Marga van Rooij our administrator has left WASTE in September 2007. She has worked with WASTE for 5 years and we will not only miss her dedicated input and efficient bookkeeping, but also her pleasant company. WASTE wishes her all the best in the new direction she has taken.

b. New staff member Helma Ballemans.

WASTE was very lucky to find a successor for Marga in the person of Helma Ballemans. She is an experienced administrator and has taken over the tasks from Marga. Previously she has worked for other NGOs and has a good knowledge of the Dutch finance rules and regulations finance. We would like to welcome Helma via this emailbulletin. We are looking forward to our first pay.

c. New project staff member: David Castellano

David Castellano, born in 1977 (Girona, Spain), is an Industrial Engineer, specialised in Chemistry. He has been involved in the wastewater field since 1999. In 2007 he obtained his MSc degree in Urban Environmental Management at Wageningen University. From 2007 he works as a sanitation project assistant (adviser) at WASTE and contributes as a guest lecturer in the Urban Environment Group at Wageningen University and UNESCO-IHE Delft. WASTE has asked David to develop a sanitation decision support tool in order to assess, from the technical point of view, the selection of appropriate sanitation systems and at the same time to evaluate their financial suitability.

d. New interns:

Jelle Pieterman has been at WASTE for a short internship of two months. He has assisted office management. Sule Balci has followed him up. She is with WASTE for the second time, this time she will stay at WASTE for 6 months and is not only assisting the office management but also working in the library of WASTE.

Evgeniya Tasheva is also a returning intern. In 2007 she assisted in a research on the importance of the informal sector in several cities. Now she is doing a research on how to gain carbon credits in solid waste management and sanitation.

3 Visit Bulgaria to the Netherlands

A group of 10 Bulgarian guests from the towns of Topoli and Varna from the MATRA project stayed in Gouda during one week (10th - 14th september). The guests represented a variety of stakeholders in the local Bulgarian waste management, like municipalties, water boards, non governmental organisations, schools, universities, During this mission information on (integrated sustainable) waste management in the Netherlands was given in the form of visit to a.o. Cyclus municiapl waste deposit (Gouda), Ster Compost (Alphen aan de Rijn) and Jean Pain master composting centre (Londerzeel, Belgium).

4. Visit of Asia proeco project to WASTE

A group of 2 Bangladeshi, 3 Sri Lankese and 2 Nepalese from the AsiaProEco project stayed in Gouda during one week (24th - 28th september). The guests represented both municipalities and non governmental organisations. The project focussed on integrated approaches to improve the urban environment in these three countries. During this mission information about (integrated sustainable) waste management and sanitation in the Netherlands was provided in the form of presentations and visits to Ster Compost (Alphen aan de Rijn), municipal waste deposit (Utrecht), water treatment (Arnhem), ARN waste treatment (Nijmegen), mother centre De Mallemolen (Haarlem), the Gouda and Utrecht municipalities and the Association of Dutch Municipalities / VNG (The Hague).

5. Mission to Ghana: Assessment of Sanitation Options in Kwanyaku

De Nys NV, a Dutch subsidiary of a Belgian engineering company, working in Ghana assigned WASTE to do an assessment of sanitation options in Kwanyaku in Ghana, where the company is running a project for water and extension services. The assessment resulted in a set of recommendations for the actual executors of appropriate environmental sanitation infrastructure together with the communities and supported by local political leaders.

The assessment brought to light that although so-called neighbourhood toilets already exist in the neighbourhoods, one could doubt their hygienic purpose. The existing latrines rarely have to be emptied, which indicates leakage and thus potential pollution of the ground water. The mission resulted in 4 sets of recommendations to the various stakeholders. 1. the construction of 200 new toilets as urine diversion systems with application of urine for cultivation of trees 2. to work simultaneously on the ‘soft side’ of ecological sanitation e.g. promotion, awareness creation, practical aspects of construction, practical aspects of use of the system, practical aspects of reuse of urine and faecal matter etc 3. construction for 5 public toilets and to use the public toilets for hygiene campaigns and sanitation market development 4. building sanitation facilities at two primary schools of 200 pupils and to use the schools as a platform for hygiene education in close cooperation with UNICEF

6. Signing MoU of WASTE and Wetlands International

It may sound as a bizarre MoU, but Wetlands International and WASTE have decided to sign this anyway. We will be inventorying the input we can give each other while working in own own fields of work. Wetlands International focuses on *** in Wetlands. Seeing that often cities are built around wetlands (river basins, estuaries and the like). In some cases the wetlands is located near a city is and is being used as dumping area or simply used as expansion option for the city. While WASTE focuses on waste management and sanitation in peri urban areas. WASTE is currently starting a baseline study in the

7 PPP-ISWM start-up meeting held in Bangkok

From 26-30 November the start-up meeting of the PPP-ISWM programme took place, in Bangkok. The PPP-ISWM initiative is a 4 year programme jointly implemented by the UNDP Public-Private Partnerships for Service Delivery (PPP-SD) in partnership with WASTE. The programme is supported by the Netherlands Government. By supporting innovative Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) in sustainable solid waste management systems the programme aims at improving lives and livelihoods of poor people in developing countries. The added value of the PPP-SD-WASTE partnership is the combination of PPP-SD’s experience in Pro-poor Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs), its access to both national and local governments, and its capability to achieve upstream policy linkages, with WASTE’s long-standing experience in working “on the ground” with the small and informal private operators of waste, recycling, and sanitation services and civil society in developing countries. The geographical focus of the programme is Sub-Saharan Africa and Asia. The main outputs of the programme are sustainable, ‘bankable’ PPPs in solid waste management in seven municipalities in various countries.

The inception meeting brought together some of WASTE's long-standing partners in the South, as well as a number of knowledge institutions from Asia and Africa. The meeting focused on: Programme management, Capacity development and Knowledge management and learning.

The meeting took the best part of a week, and managed to install a sense of positive challenge in all: this is a first such cooperation, as equal partners, of a UNDP organisation and an organisation like WASTE in the development of grass-root PPP's. Ideas on what a PPP entails differed slightly and the discussions and examples from both UNDP related organisations and WASTE partners resulted in lively interesting discussions and a broadening of the definition. Also ways to try to include informal sector have been discussed, as it is a difficult sector to reach and approach while actually this group is the beneficiary of the programme.

The next step will be the mobilisation of the various UNDP country offices, who will take the lead in inviting proposals for PPP's that are eligible to be supported under the programme

8. PUBLICATIONS

General

Many of WASTE publications have been made accessible electronically, through the WASTE website: www.waste.nl or can be requested to be emailed via webmaster@waste.nl. Due to renewal of the website not all publications can be found on the website yet. The digital documents are free of charge. For hard copies we have to charge for the copy and sending costs.

Topics covered, are:

-Organic waste and compost

-Plastic waste

-Rubber waste

-Hazardous waste

-Micro and small enterprises in waste management

-Excreta collection

-Ecological Sanitation

-Urban agriculture

-Occupational health aspects in waste collection and recycling

-Community participation

-Sustainable wastewater treatment

-Hospital waste management

-Separation at source

-Ship and port waste

-Battery recycling

-Integrated Sustainable Waste Management

For any orders and/or a copy of the publication list, please contact WASTE (direct e-mail: vdevreede@waste.nl) or visit www.waste.nl. For full address, see the beginning of this bulletin.

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