3rd International Conference for Waste Management Oman

Waste is a growing problem both environmentally and financially in developed nations. Effective methodologies to manage waste better is of great significance. 

The 2nd edition of the event saw over 300 attendees with over 150 delegates from government bodies. The event was organised by the Muscat Municipality in cooperation with Fleming Gulf and was held under the patronage of the Minister of Ministry of Regional Municipalities & Water Resources

The purpose of the 3rd International Conference for Waste Management Oman is to grasp the issues being raised across industry sectors and how to achieve a sustainable waste management system. The conference will bring together industry experts and decision makers from government bodies to discuss and debate the next step in achieving the zero waste initiative.

Key topics will include:-

 Strengthening legislative framework for effective Waste Management in Oman 

 Setting perspectives for Integrated Waste Management 

 Fostering a recycle - friendly atmosphere 

 Privatizing the Waste Management sector – key factors to consider 

 Reducing & re-using Hazardous waste management 

 Waste water treatment 

Website: Click here  

Dates: 7 - 8 April 2014Location: Al Bustan Palace – A Ritz Carlton Hotel, Muscat, OmanContact: Manohar Bharwani   Tel: 971 - 4609 - 1570

PRESS RELEASE: Moving the Sultanate of Oman towards Zero Waste

An International exclusive summit on waste management to ensure that the Sultanate of Oman moves towards a greener and zero waste future.

Oman: Waste management in Sultanate of Oman is in a transition phase and the entity to lead this development is the Oman Environmental Services Holding Company (be’ah) as authorized by the government of Oman.

Waste management is a challenging issue for the Sultanate of Oman because of its adverse impacts on environment and public health. With population of almost 3 million inhabitants, the country produced about 1.6 million tons of solid waste

Nispana Innovative Platforms is hosting the Waste Management Oman Summit in collaboration with Leading Environment Change Bee’ ah which is scheduled to take place on the 11th and 12th of March 2014 at the Grand Hyatt in Muscat, Sultanate of Oman.  It is gathering up to 100 senior industry representatives, Oman authorities and leading international waste management companies –
For two days in Oman.
You will have the opportunity to host business meetings with decision makers from Oman Public Authorities and leading Private Omani corporations, Source partnerships with Omani organizations through joint ventures, alliances and private equity, Showcase your latest technology and expertise to prospective investors and project holders .
Industry leaders including Ricardo- AEA, Veolia Environment, Lamor Middle East , Sphinx Services, Haya Water, Enviroplan S.A , Alawael Overseas Company LLC  and Bjornsen Consulting Engineers have already confirmed their participation. In addition, respected representatives from the Bee’ ah and The Ministry of Regional Municipalities and Water Resources Oman have extended their support.

About Nispana Innovative Platforms
Nispana Innovative Platforms is a leading provider of business intelligence through industry specific conferences, exhibitions and training courses facilitated by world renowned trainers leveraging our network of industrial insiders with immense knowledge both practical and theoretical to share with organizations in order to ensure that they achieve operational efficiency and meet all business goals.

Media Contact:                                                                                
Mohita Bhimsaria
mohita.bhimsatria@nispana.com
T: +91 80 49331000
W: www.nispana.com/wastemanagementonam
© Press Release 2014                         
                                                                                                
To Get Involved as a Sponsor Contact:
Neel Shetty
neel.shetty@nispana.com
T: +91 80 49331000

© Press Release 2014    

PRESS RELEASE: Waste Management and Recycling Summit 2014

Waste Management and Recycling Summit 2014

Moving the kingdom of Saudi Arabia Towards Zero Waste and a Sustainable Future

Strapline: To bring back the era of green legacy of our sustainable future worldwide & exploring the potential of resources already categorized as “Waste” we chose to redefine as “Potential Residue”.

Nispana Innovative platforms as a company has identified that its conducive to address the issue surmounting our globe with respect to the minimal utilization of residues of various sector we chose to define it differently and not as “WASTE”, hence has conceptualized the “Waste Management and Recycling Summit 2014 ” on the 23rd-24th of April at Radisson Blu in Riyadh , Saudi Arabia.  Eminent Waste-Management & Environment professionals are scheduled to attend the two-day event.

The summit aspires to give an insight into the various reports formulated worldwide by some one of the finest environmentalist on Waste statistics, discussing latest technologies to be incorporated to bring down the level of waste produced and implement the Waste to Energy criteria’s. Foresighted & extremely senior level speakers converging to present case studies from leading organizations, sharing their experience on how to leave an impact on the environment and this time without disturbing the balance. In this two day conference various sectors are represented: from Ministries to Municipalities, from Oil & gas companies to metal and Plastics’ industry, Hotels & Hospitality and many more, to address the need of our survival. To bring forward and to highlight the future opportunities in Waste Management sector as a whole, capture the most effective and latest technologies focused on investments and Return On Investments in Waste Management and bring in the industry Experts & Solution Providers from across the globe to share their expertise to make this initiative a bench mark in itself.

The different themes covered at this Summit are:

·          Insight on the Global Waste Management sector as compared to the Kingdom Of Saudi Arabia and looking beyond the periphery of the conventional techniques of WM.

·         Role of Waste hierarchy & Exclusive Presentation on seismic shift in responsibility for Products generating highest amount of waste.

·         Emerging Alternative Investment Opportunities In The Middle East for Waste to Energy.

·         Addressing the economies financing’ needs to encourage greater application of Waste Management. & Drawing the attention of various regulatory bodies towards the challenges in legal framework while executing the policies and plans.

·         The speakers will describe the current scenario w .r. t  to Investment forecasts and assess the underlying challenges.

·         It is critical to identify the importance of execution the 7 R's of Sustainability and hence experts would be investigating the challenges in implementing the environmental action plans and frame work of legislation.

·         Financing possibilities of Waste Management sector. This forward-thinking session will examine what has not worked in the past,
drawing on what future lessons can be learned for the industry.

About Nispana:

Our aim is to create a perfect environment for you to communicate with the right people at the right time and place. It ultimately is for you to deliver on your objectives. Furthermore, we will introduce you to the people who matter to your business. To do this, we offer a range of networking, focusing on re-education, and most importantly deal making opportunities for all attendees within the conference programme.

At Nispana, we bring together the corporate buyers and solution providers for business negotiations, business mergers and acquisitions for long term success and to add great value to our organizations.

We provide finest business intelligence solutions through conferences, congresses and summits in India where recognized and respected masses have their presence and lead to finest solutions.

Contact for further Information:

Name: Ms Mohita Bhimsaria

Phone: +91 (80) 4933 1000

Email:mohita.bhimsaria@nispana.com

Website:www.nispana.com/wastemanagement

(The story of) Denmark’s transition from incineration to Zero Waste

Source: Zero Waste Europe 

Denmark is perceived to be one of the world’s greenest countries. But is it really? Besides the Danish windmills and bike lanes there is a not-so-well-hidden secret of this otherwise rather environmentally friendly country; their passion for burning garbage!

This burning passion has received widespread and often misleading coverage by international media such as the New York Times or the National Geographic who didn’t bother to dig too much into the details and instead succumbed to the charms of well-designed green washing.

Objective facts about Denmark are that is one of EU countries that generate more waste per capita, and is world leader in incineration of household waste, burning 80% of it. For comparison this means that after discounting recycling Denmark burns more waste than what is generated in countries such as Czech Republic, Estonia, Bulgaria or Poland. How green is that?

Contrary to best practices in the sector, in Denmark most household waste is not separately collected this means that recycling rates are as low as 22%. Most organic waste, which is 90% water, ends up in the oven.
More waste is good, less waste is bad

It might look like a contradiction but in Denmark the system is set up in a way that the worst thing you can do is reduce the size of your waste bin. Why? Well, every city in Denmark has its own incinerator and they are mostly publicly owned. This means that the citizens are actually the owners of the burners and hence if less waste is sent for burning -because it is being avoided, reused or recycled- the incinerator will function under full capacity, lowering the efficiency to generate heat and power. Yet the incinerator has to meet the capital and operating costs with less income which will result in an increase in the waste management fees. I.e. the more waste you generate, the better for your pocket.

With the current system of incentives in Denmark getting to Zero Waste would be a financial catastrophe. It is therefore unsurprising that the country that burns the most also generates more waste than any other. Denmark is the perfect example of the linkage between waste burning and waste generation.
But burning waste is good to heat and power the Danish homes!

This has been the mantra in Denmark and in some other northern-European countries. Scandinavian long dark cold winters of course justify higher intake of heat and power and this has been the main reason why generation of energy from waste has been pioneered in these countries. However waste burning in Denmark is a 19th century practice which is clearly unfit for the 21st. Not only because burning waste is extremely inefficient way to generate energy but rather because there are already other carbon neutral technologies that are put on stand-by for as long as the incineration capacity is in place.

In other words, incineration is one of the main obstacles in the path of Denmark towards becoming a carbon neutral country. Indeed, 20% of heat production and 5% of electricity in Denmark are generated from waste incineration but this heat and power could be replaced with a combination of geothermal, wind and biogas from separately collected bio waste, all mature and available technologies. Moreover, EU law dictates that as from 2020 all new buildings will need to be carbon neutral radically reducing the need for energy input. Last but not least, there is a clear overcapacity of installed power between the waste incineration and large combustion plants which causes that in the coldest months of the year the windmills are stopped despite the strong winds, only to give priority to the thermal installations due to the need of heat.
The case of incinerator with the ski slope. Why not building a sauna instead?

Have you heard of the latest Danish contribution to waste management? It is about merging garbage and sports by skiing on piles of garbage burning under immaculate synthetic white… and in order to remind skiers of the real purpose of the plant, each time a metric tonne of CO2 is released the smokestack will puff out a 30m wide ring into the sky. This is the project of the Amager Bakke incinerator, the jewel of the crown of Danish incineration.

As usual the too-good-to-be-true things are actually not that good at all. This half a million tonnes burner is the latest attempt to sell this technology to the world. As long as you keep people entertained talking about the ski slope they will not think about avoiding or recycling this waste instead. Why is it that Danish composting plants don’t try to use the heat generated in the organic decomposition of food waste to sell fancy saunas? Well, firstly because they don’t need this kind of marketing to operate and lastly because there aren’t many composting plants in a country where most organic waste is not recycled but burned.

The truth is that the construction of the Amager Bakke incinerator has sparked lots of debate in the country. Danish citizens and politicians are more and more aware that they are recycling too little and burning too much, and that the incineration overcapacity of the country is not something to be proud of. For this reason, the ministry of environment led by Ms Ida Auken opposed the construction of this incinerator and in the end it was only because of the pressure from the finances minister, Mr Bjarne Corydon, that this project got the green light. If you wonder what does the minister of finance have to do with waste incineration it will help understand that he is elected in Esbjerg, the city where happens to be the headquarters of the company which will build the incinerator.

This conflict of interest that in southern Europe would be quickly associated with corruption did spark some public debate in Denmark but didn’t stop the process. Actually just after the decision to stop the incinerator was changed through secret negotiations the director of the supplier company wrote an article in the national business paper thanking the finance minister for good lobby work in the case of Amager incinerator. It has also been implied that the interest from Chinese companies to order a good number of burners from the Danish company has played a decisive role in rubberstamping this unnecessary and expensive infrastructure.

Two more interesting facts are the uneasiness of the neighbours who will have to pay for this piece of design and above all the fact that for the moment no company is interested to run the famous ski slope. As explained, household waste incinerators in Denmark are publicly owned but this doesn’t apply to ski resorts. In other words, for the moment the ski slope doesn’t have an operator and the neighbours have said that one thing is to have to pay for the incinerator and another thing is shouldering the costs of running the ski slope. Stay tuned because the saga of the Amager Bakke is far from over.
Denmark is leaving behind the incineration age

Leaving behind these isolated desperate attempts to make incineration fashionable in order to sell the technology to Asia, the truth is that Denmark is planning to embark in a very challenging journey. The country aims at becoming independent from fossil fuel by 2050 and this will mean having to close down all polluting power plants by then, including of course the waste-to-energy incinerators.

This will not be an easy task because as already explained the link between waste and energy in Denmark is very strong. This has an impact on waste management, creating perverse incentives which are contrary to waste reduction, reuse and recycling and it also has an impact on energy policy, effectively blocking cleaner technologies from taking over. Moving away from incineration allows hitting two targets with one shot and the Danish ministry of Environment knows it.

This is why the new waste management plan that minister Auken presented in November 2013 is called ”Denmark without waste – Recycle More, Incinerate less”. In her own words: ”in Denmark we have been incinerating almost 80 % of our household waste. Even though this has made an important contribution to green energy production, materials and resources have been lost which could otherwise have been recycled. Now, we are going to change this.”

Some measures envisaged by the plan consist in replacing incineration with separately collected garden and food waste to produce biogas and compost, with the recycling of plastic and paper that are now being burned or to landfill toxic materials such as PVC instead of releasing them into the air through combustion. It also implies the privatisation in the ownership of the incinerators so those that are not profitable will have to close. All in all it aims at reducing the waste sent for burning in 820,000 tons by 2022.

It looks like the showcase for incineration in the world will be changing business. This will be good for the Danish recycling industry which might see a rebirth after having turned to ashes by decades of burning fever. It will also be good for the Danes for the decrease in incineration will reduce the pollution and associated health impacts and the increase of recycling will generate jobs and a more self-sustainable economy. And finally it will be good for the rest of the world which finally will be able to import good waste practices from Denmark.

This change of paradigm will not happen overnight but considering the determination and efficiency of the Danes once they set their minds into something it is to be expected that they will be as good in moving towards zero waste as they have been in championing incineration.

Canadians trash $27 billion worth of food a year

Michelle Eshpeter, her three-year-old son Ben and one-year-old daughter Clara enjoy a meal in their home in Edmonton. Eshpeter plans meals ahead and makes specific grocery shopping lists so that she minimizes food spoilage in her home.

EDMONTON - Michelle Eshpeter is fighting food waste, one piece of chalk at a time.

The mother of two preschoolers finds that menu planning, and keeping an ongoing grocery list on a giant chalk board tacked to the kitchen door, is the best way to ensure she saves money — and the environment — by only buying the amount of food her family will eat.

“The first thing I do is to have a plan for purchasing my family’s food, and what I will do with it,” says Eshpeter, a volunteer with the City of Edmonton’s master composter recycler program, which teaches people how to turn food waste into gold, or at least fertilizer. “I think it’s the most important thing I do to reduce food waste.”

Before shopping, she scours the pantry and the fridge to see what ingredients are already on hand before she makes her list. Veggies gone soft are tossed into a weekly soup. When Eshpeter cooks, she aims for leftovers; they’re great for lunch.

Eshpeter’s attitude toward food preparation, and her concern about reducing waste, is more than the mark of a thrifty household manager. The planet, and the economy, would be further ahead if more people adopted her perspective.

Food waste not only costs money — more than $1,000 a year is thrown in the kitchen trash yearly per Canadian family — it’s a major contributor, via landfill, to the production of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and methane. (In the United Kingdom, it’s estimated that the carbon impact of food waste is more than 20 metric tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent emissions annually.)

Furthermore, when food is wasted, the agricultural resources used to produce the food, such as soil and water, are also lost.

The costs associated with tossing food are startlingly significant; the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations estimates that, globally, one-third of food produced to feed people is lost as it moves from field to plate. In Canada, the value of the food waste is greater than the combined Gross Domestic Product of the 32 poorest countries in the world, according to the World Bank.

It would be easy to assume that most food loss is linked to spoilage in grocery stores, or excess production at food processors or in restaurants, or careless handling by farmers and food industry truckers. But 51 per cent of food waste in Canada is generated in the home.

“We often throw small things away, a few tomatoes, or a quarter of a cabbage, or the cucumbers that have turned into a science experiment,” says Martin Gooch, an expert in food waste at the Value Chain Management Centre (VCMC) of Oakville, Ontario. “(So) it’s not until we take a step back that we can see how enormous the impact is.”

Statistics Canada estimates that about 40 per cent of all the food we produce in this country goes to waste, to the tune of $27 billion a year — that’s more than the value of all the food purchased by Canadians in restaurants in 2009. American statistics are even more unsettling, with roughly 50 per cent of all food that’s produced for people going to waste.

In the United Kingdom, studies point out that most consumer food waste could be avoided. While about 20 per cent of food thrown away is made up of items such as cores and bones, the rest could have been eaten.

It wasn’t always that way. Anybody with a friend or relative raised during the Great Depression, or either of the World Wars, knows that food was once precious.

“Food waste has got worse over the years, we have evidence over the years to prove that,” says Gooch, the chief executive at VCMC, an agri-food industry consultant specializing in sustainability.

The fact that food is cheaper now than it used to be exacerbates the situation; consumers are perhaps less worried about maximizing its use. American statistics reveal that food expenditures as a share of disposable income decreased from about 23 per cent in 1929 to under 10 per cent in 2008.

Experts note that food cost combined with other factors, such as postwar affluence and high expectations for quality in North America, the frantic pace of modern life and a decline in food preparation skills have contributed to a situation in which it can be preferable to throw food out rather than figure out how to cook it.

Competition in the grocery sector also plays a role, with retailers duking it out on volume. Big box stores that offer super-sized portions of baked goods and two-for-one processed cereal deals, or package fresh food in gigantic containers more suited to a platoon than a family, are part of the problem.

Confusion also abounds over food safety, with many consumers being unclear on the difference between a best-before date, a use-by date, and a sell-by date. Many foods that are still completely safe, but perhaps deteriorating somewhat in quality or appeal, are discarded out of ignorance. (For more information on this, go toeatbydate.com, a consumer organization that seeks to answer the question ‘how long does food really last?’)

Part of the increased household food waste has to do with our growing interest in eating fresh and healthy fruits and vegetables, which perish rapidly. Gooch says the total amount of wasted vegetables has increased from an average of just over 50 kilograms per person, per year, to close to 80 kilograms between 1961 and 2009.

Concern over food waste at home doesn’t let industry off the hook. Some 18 per cent of food waste occurs at the packaging and processing stage. Eight per cent is lost in the food service industry. Retail stores are responsible for 11 per cent of food waste, though some major retailers like Safeway have comprehensive composting and donation programs to charities such as Edmonton’s Food Bank, to ensure that food is wasted as little as possible.

But when more than half the food that is wasted can be found in the collective bin under the kitchen sink, it’s clear that citizens can make a significant difference on the home front.

Nobody knows about that more than Myles Curry, marketing co-ordinator in community relations for the City of Edmonton’s waste management services. Curry was one of the researchers who took part in a study, published in 2013, involving single family homes identified as large volume producers (LVP) of residential waste. Large volume producers, about 10 per cent of Edmonton homeowners, typically drag between six and 10 bags of garbage to the curbside. The average household produces about two bags. Large volume producers were identified by city garbage collectors and 150 households spread across the city were approached in 2012 to take part in an audit of their garbage. The hope was that by identifying the excess, it could be reduced.

What’s remarkable about the audit was the kind of waste produced in the large-volume homes. Typically, the green garbage bags produced by Edmontonians feature 23 per cent food waste. With large volume producers, that figure was much higher — roughly double at 45 per cent of the total waste in the garbage bag. More shocking was this: almost one third of food wasted was still intact.

Curry notes that 28 per cent of the food garbage ended up in the bin because the consumer chose to toss it rather than eat it. Much of that was in unopened packages, including a sealed box of granola bars. The homeowners, who were provided with a small incentive for taking part in the survey such as passes to city attractions, were blissfully ignorant of the amount of food they were wasting.

“They weren’t aware. It wasn’t even on their map,” says Curry.

Furthermore, many of them didn’t care about food waste. In a survey that accompanied the audit, more than 60 per cent of the large volume producers said they do no planning to reduce food waste and 42 per cent were not open to the idea of reducing waste. Compare that to a survey of random Edmontonians — 54 per cent of whom said they were planning on reducing food waste.

Most of the large volume producers didn’t connect tossed food to broader environmental issues.

“It’s a tough nut to crack,” says Curry ruefully.

Many of the big waste producers also believed that the environmental impact of waste is minimized by the processing capacity of the Edmonton Waste Management Centre. For more than 10 years, the EWMC has turned the food scraps at the curbside (along with sewage sludge) into a rich compost for beefing up soil. The composting facility, together with other city recycling programs, means Edmonton diverts up to 60 per cent of its residential waste from landfill. That diversion rate will increase to 90 per cent when the new biofuel facility comes on steam in 2014.

Still, it’s much easier, and cheaper, to deal with waste when there is less of it.

While Curry says the city has plans to develop a program to encourage Edmontonians to reduce their food waste, such plans are in the early stage.

Outside of city hall, some businesses in the food service industry have put their own programs in place to lower the amount of food thrown away. Since 2009, the Shaw Conference Centre has donated excess food produced for banquets or other events through an initiative called Second Helping.

If an event takes place and less people attend than were expected, overproduced food goes to Edmonton’s Food Bank. Sustainability co-ordinator Shelby Sherwick says food safety is key, and the excess food — big hotel pans full of potatoes or roast turkey — stays in the kitchen, where it is repackaged into smaller portions and frozen in aluminum containers for the food bank. Only items that freeze well, such as soup or proteins, are eligible for the program. Sherwick says that Second Helping, along with other waste management strategies including recycling, help to divert 53 per cent of the waste stream at the conference centre from landfill.

Perhaps the world leaders in the reduction of food waste, both in and outside of the home, are the good folk in the United Kingdom, where the government launched the Waste Reduction Action Programme (WRAP) in 2000. Some 40 major grocery stores and food producers in the program, including the big players such as Tesco and Marks & Spencer, have created numerous strategies that reduce waste, and many of them save money for the company, too.

Tesco, for instance, began a new kind of buy-one-get-one-free program by adding the word “later” to the tag line. Two-for-one promotions are frequently associated with waste, because you can only use so much bagged spinach, even if it is half-price. But Tesco gave consumers the same deal if they purchased the second item within two weeks.

Other innovations by food retailers include selling mid-sized loaves of bread, and tortilla wraps that are in resealable packages. Marks & Spencer created a new package for its roasts that reduced the material used to cover the roast, and also increased the shelf life of the product by four days.

Some of the ideas generated by UK marketers hoping to change attitudes to waste are charmingly creative. For instance, food waste is a bigger issue around holidays such as Christmas. Inspired by research showing people were surfing the Internet for curry recipes on Boxing Day, the UK division of Molson Coors Brewing launched a campaign to develop recipes for leftovers designed by celebrity chefs that would pair well with beer.

WRAP also encourages consumers to examine their own food behaviours at home.

“A lot of it is education, showing consumers just how much is wasted. It’s almost like a shock treatment, making them fully aware of where the opportunities lie,” says Gooch. “WRAP in the UK were seen as a bunch of kooks (in the beginning) by industry and by many consumers. But over time, they have proven there are real opportunities from a household and business perspective.”

Also in the UK is a popular website called Love Food Hate Waste that encourages consumers to reduce food waste by preparing proper portions and using food before it goes bad. In a PowerPoint presentation the organization uses for training purposes, Love Food Hate Waste notes that food waste has fallen by 15 per cent in the roughly six years since its campaign was launched.

Gooch believes Canada could take a lesson from United Kingdom initiatives such as WRAP and Love Food Hate Waste. He suggests government and industry partner up to make changes that would reduce food waste in Canada, but it’s a big project, and little has been done so far. Indeed, many government rules, such as those about food grading, “actually exacerbate food waste,” Gooch says. One place to start making changes would be to offer tax incentives for producers, farmers or processors who find ways to donate excess food.

While government leadership is important, if more than half of food waste is in the home, changing attitudes and behaviour in the kitchen is a good place to start.

University of Alberta environmental sociologist, Naomi Krogman says municipalities could encourage household waste reduction by charging people more for garbage collection if they produce a lot of it. But encouraging people to gather together to share ideas and learn from each other is also a powerful persuader.

“Seeing how other people reduce their waste is a better way to change behaviour than bombarding people with information or messages about guilt,” says Krogman, who is also the academic director of the office of sustainability at the university.

Locally, a few, small community initiatives are at work. Organizations such as Operation Fruit Rescue and Fruits of Sherbrooke are waking up the community to the benefits of collecting local fruit before it rots on the ground. The newly formed Edmonton Food Council has pledged to look at how to treat food waste as a resource for Edmontonians. Watch for environmental activist and Earth’s General Store owner Michael Kalmanovitch to host workshops in 2014 on reducing food waste in the home.

Once a year, the City of Edmonton’s master composter recycler program teaches people — for free — how to use kitchen scraps in the garden, as well as many other waste reduction skills. The course is 40 hours long, and requires an additional 35 hours of volunteer work from participants. Further information is available online at edmonton.ca, and the deadline to apply for the program is Feb. 20, 2014.

Michelle Eshpeter, who has taken the master composter recycler program and makes avoiding waste a priority, takes a thoughtful approach. She feels that cooking and grocery shopping are “undervalued,” and that people don’t spend the time to make even small changes that could be really meaningful, to the household, and to the culture at large.

“I think our relationship with food is really weak ... people are so busy doing other things, lots of people don’t even cook for themselves,” reflects Eshpeter. “It’s a higher priority to be busy doing activities and it’s admired to work long hours — much more so than if you spend time cooking and doing domestic things.”

Eshpeter prepares comprehensive grocery lists, shops frequently to avoid over-purchasing, and is creative with recipes. It saves money, and waste, and to her that’s worth the effort.

Myles Curry of the waste management department at the City of Edmonton says small changes — from embracing leftovers to learning more about best-before dates — can make a significant difference to the reduction of waste.

“We need to demystify food waste. Not many people know about the food waste numbers and they need to know how much food waste is contributing to our waste overall. I believe there is a strong core of people who would respond well to an appeal.”

lfaulder@edmontonjournal.com

Bookmark my blog at edmontonjournal.com/eatmywords or follow me at twitter.com/eatmywordsblog

Five ways to reduce waste at home

1) Proudly plan your eating life

Decide on a weekly menu and collect your recipes. Go through the pantry and freezer to see what ingredients are already on hand, and put together a grocery list based on what you need. That way you won’t end up buying unnecessary, extra food items at the grocery store. Boast about your new-found thrift to your friends.

2) Take a lesson from the United Kingdom

Spend some time online on websites such as Love Food Hate Waste, which offers inspirational ideas for consumers — and for businesses — on reducing food waste. Ask your local grocery store to consider running a modified Buy One Get One Free promotion; Tesco in the UK lets consumers pick up their second, “free” product within two weeks, so consumers won’t end up with twice as much food as they need to take advantage of the sale.

3) Learn more about best-before dates

Lots of people don’t understand how long food stays fresh. “Best before” doesn’t mean “bad after.” For more information, go to eatbydate.com, a consumer organization that seeks to answer the question ‘how long does food really last?”

4) Love your leftovers

Make a major meal on a weekend, and eat it again at least once during the week. Microwave leftovers are a great change from sandwiches at lunch.

5) Think twice before buying in bulk

It’s not a good deal if you end up wasting the food that’s on sale, or sold in gigantic containers you’ll never get through. Visit the grocery store two or three times a week to buy your fresh items.

© Copyright (c) The Edmonton Journal

Kingdom Waste Management

The “Kingdom Waste Management Summit-2014” is a vision to explore the future of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia mirroring a green nation forecasted to be the next potential market for the Waste Management Sector in specific. Reports show that Waste would turn out to be the game changing resource across the globe. With countries trying to move from Waste Management to Waste to Energy criteria’s, it’s necessary for us as an industry to tap the opportunity and bring out the hidden aspects to present to the world the potential of the left foregone resources hence we are taking an “INITIATIVE” & we call for your Attention.!!

Looking at the past trends and the kind of investments been made we were compelled to bring it to your notice once again. Let’s look at the numbers: “Saudi Arabia is pursuing investments and reforms, Government is determined to position the Kingdom as one of the world’s most competitive economies by the beginning of the next decade”. The Kingdom is ranked 8th among the world’s 10- high growth economies by the International Monetary Fund (IMF).With population of around 29 million, Saudi Arabia generates more than 15 million tons of solid waste per year. The per capita waste generation is estimated at 1.5 to 1.8 kg per person per day.

Solid waste generation in the three largest cities – Riyadh, Jeddah and Dammam – exceeds 6 million tons per annum which gives an indication of the enormity of the problem faced by civic bodies.  

Globally currently, world cities generate about 1.3 billion Tones of solid waste per year. This volume is expected to Increase   to 2.2 billion tones by 2025.Costs will Increase from today’s annual $ 205.4 Billion to about $375.5 billion in 2025.In Saudi in specific we are looking at a figure of 12% waste treatment annually leaving us with a market potential of 88% in future.

With regard to governance over sustainability the proportion of private sector schemes is likely to rise in future as the Government seeks greater private sector participation in project development. This is likely to be reflected in private sector power developments, water and wastewater projects and in real estate development & sustainable development.

Strong legislations, financial support, public awareness, modern technologies and stakeholders’ participation should be the key in transforming Saudi Arabia into a ‘green’ nation. A strong political commitment and unflinching public support is mandatory for implementing a sustainable waste management strategy in the country.

Hence, “NISPANA” presents “Kingdom Waste Management Summit- 23rd & 24th April-2014, at the Radisson Blu-Riyadh , Kingdom of Saudi Arabia ”to bring forward and highlight the future opportunities in this sector, Capture the most effective and latest technologies, Focused on investments and RoI in Waste Management and bring in the industry Experts & Solution Providers from across the globe to share their expertise to make this initiative a bench mark in WM –sector.

Launch of the National Waste Management Strategies publication

(Source: IETC)
 

Guidelines for National Waste Management Strategies related problems are often addressed in a fragmented and uncoordinated manner, resulting for the most part in end of pipe solutions which forego prevention measures, and lack an integrated approach, clear targets and directions to follow.

In an effort to assist countries in developing a holistic and overarching approach to national waste management, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR) have jointly published the Guidelines for National Waste Management Strategies: Moving from Challenges to Opportunities.  Launched on 7 October at the International Solid Waste Association (ISWA) Congress in Vienna, the Guidelines provide a conceptual and methodological framework for national planning that countries may adapt to their particular circumstances, while establishing a clear rationale for making waste management a national priority.


The document first outlines the key reasons why even though waste management implementation takes place at the local level, there is a need to develop national waste management strategies:

National waste management planning not only helps address the problems presented by current waste management systems, but maximizes the opportunities that sound waste management can offer in relation to all pillars of sustainable development (e.g. environmental, social and economic).

National waste management planning supports the local implementation of waste management by indicating the direction to follow and the resources required, in addition to how these resources will be properly allocated where needed locally.

National waste management planning can foster the development of national recycling schemes and markets for recovered materials, and open or strengthen business opportunities in the waste sector.

Proposing questions that countries may wish to consider as they develop integrated national waste management strategies, the document explores the challenges and opportunities waste management presents to governments and communities. Reviewing the various concepts and principles related to waste management, it cites major considerations influencing policy choices involved in the process of strategy development, monitoring and implementation. Finally, this document defines the actions a country can take in order to develop, implement, review and update an effective national waste management strategy.