By EEC on 18 Mar 2016
How to properly deal with the massive amounts of waste generated by disasters and crises, including that generated by typhoons, earthquakes and conflicts, was the topic of a three-day workshop organised by the Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency (MSB) in Sweden on 15-17 March.
MSB stand-by roster personnel was the main target audience of the course. At the workshop in Sweden experts shared their experience dealing with waste caused by typhoon Haiyan/Yolanda in the Philippines (2013), cyclone Pam in Vanuatu (2014) and the earthquakes in Nepal (2015). Two workshop participants are now deploying to Fiji to support UNDP on dealing with disaster waste as part of the early recovery to cyclone Winston.
Clearance of roads and agricultural territories from rubble, safe demolition of damaged housing, sorting and collection of waste, reuse of materials for shelters, proper management of healthcare waste from camps and re-establishment of waste value chains are all examples of disaster waste management. The work of a disaster waste manager is directly related to the activities of multiple clusters and experts, including WASH, shelter and early recovery.
When done right, timely and proper disaster waste makes response more efficient and lays the foundation for recovery.
To find out more about the work of MSB's seconded experts, watch the video on disaster waste experts' role in the typhoon Haiyan/Yolanda response: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6m_WXBL2nQ4.
To educate yourself on disaster waste, take the Disaster Waste Management online learning and make use of the online Disaster Waste Management guidelines.