Diving Deep: deploying finance to prevent plastic pollution of the oceans
A key constraint to improving waste and resource management in many countries is a lack of access to investment finance. Extending waste collection to all and phasing out uncontrolled dumping and open burning in low-income countries would significantly cut the mass of plastics reaching the ocean. So the UNEP Finance Initiative publication Diving Deep, aimed at banks, insurers and institutional investors, is very welcome. Guidance is provided in the form of a science-based, actionable toolkit, to ensure that their investments, both in product manufacture and in waste management, encourage waste prevention and sound waste management, thus keeping plastics out of the oceans.
Practical Action focuses attention on solid waste management
DCW was sent a copy of Practical Action’s new report ‘Managing Our Wastes 2021’ a few weeks ago and invited to write an endorsement for it. Having read and reviewed it, I was happy to do so; the report was launched today in a webinar hosted by UN-Habitat. I am quoted on the back cover: ‘Most development work tackles the issue of solid waste management from the ‘top down’, and often focuses on (large scale) infrastructure. Practical Action strengthens the ‘bottom-up’, people-centred aspects. I commend to you this important new manifesto to put people back at the centre of how we manage our solid wastes.’
Make phasing out open burning of waste an international priority
Professor David C Wilson welcomes the only waste-related official side event at COP26 which is being held in Glasgow today at 1315 and available to watch on the United Nations – Climate Change COP 26 YouTube channel. That the topic is ‘A wasted opportunity: open burning of waste causes a climate and health calamity’ is an added bonus. Congratulations to ISWA, Wasteaid, Engineering X and partners for getting both waste and open burning on the official COP26 agenda!
DCW awards his Presidential Medal
At the CIWM Presidential Dinner at the Intercontinental Hotel in Dublin, after the inauguration of Enda Kiernan as the next President, DCW’s last act as the retiring President was to award his CIWM Presidential Medal for 2018. The recipient was Mike Webster, the founder and CEO of the new charity Wasteaid, which is working directly with local communities in some of the least developed countries to tackle the global waste crisis. The text of DCW’s speech is reproduced below.
DCW hands over the CIWM Presidency
Professor David C Wilson handed over the Presidency of CIWM, the UK and Irish professional body for resources and waste, to Enda Kiernan at the Aviva Stadium in Dublin on 13 November 2018. He highlighted plastics – both plastics entering the oceans and China’s ban on imports for recycling – as the dominant topic in his Presidential year. The public focus on marine plastics also helped dissemination of his Presidential report, the CIWM-Wasteaid Toolkit Making Waste Work; the website clocked 56,000 visits in its first year, with 7,000 downloads. DCW introduced his fellow Irishman, Enda Kiernan of Cork County Council as the next President. CIWM waited more than a century for its first Irish President; now we have had three in five years, and two in a row, although Enda is the first from the Republic of Ireland.
DCW awards his Presidential Medal
DCW awarded his CIWM Presidential Medal for 2018 to Mike Webster, the founder and CEO of the new charity Wasteaid, which is working directly with local communities to tackle the global waste crisis.
DCW hands over CIWM Presidency
DCW handed over to Enda Kiernan at the Aviva Stadium in Dublin on 13th November 2018. The Gaelic Football team which Enda manages appeared in the lead photo story of the previous day’s Irish Times
DCW inaugurated as CIWM President
Professor David C Wilson giving his inauguration speech as CIWM President 2017 at Church House Westminster in October 2017. His theme for the year was solid waste management as the forgotten utility service, underpinning modern society.
DCW’s CIWM Presidential Report 2017
DCW commissioned WasteAid UK to prepare a practical toolkit for poor communities on how to make useful products from the low-value plastics and organics in their waste. In its first year, the website was visited 56,000 times, with 7,000 downloads of the toolkit.
ISWA Publication Award 2015
DCW with co-authors Ljiljana Rodic, Andy Whiteman, Costas Velis, Barbara Oelz, Joachim Stretz and Anne Scheinberg, receiving the Award from ISWA Scientific and Technical Committee Chair Antonis Mavropoulos (left), at the ISWA 2015 World Congress in Antwerp on Tuesday 08 September.