In such a remote area as the middle of the Pacific Ocean, waste and recycling options have been, historically, limited. Until recently, most of the waste created in the majority of small Pacific Island countries has been deposited in a combination of landfills and open dumps. Green waste has typically been burnt.

All this is somewhat understandable given the barriers the islands face. Small and sometimes sparse populations can make dealing with solid wastes more difficult, especially as the volumes that can be collected are relatively small. Geographical isolation as well as lack of infrastructure also make it difficult, and expensive, to export materials for recycling. “Location is always a critical factor”, says David Sheppard, Director of the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP). “Generally, a successful long-term scheme operating in an isolated region will have to have a system of separation, compaction and medium to long-term secure storage in place for material to be recycled successfully. The bulk export of collected items to be recycled will help cuts costs.”
And cost is a serious barrier. Implementation of new initiatives in relatively remote and undeveloped areas like the Pacific region require some level of outside investment. “The goal is always to ensure that established schemes are financially self-sufficient. It is also important to fully cost the consequences of not taking action in terms of, for example, the loss of tourism revenue or increased healthcare costs due to poor operation of sanitary landfill sites when considering the overall cost of waste disposal”, warns Sheppard.

Fortunately, the region is currently benefitting from support from organisations including the Asian Development Bank, AusAID, NZAID, the French Development Agency, which is helping build human capacity for waste management, and the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), which is funding innovative waste management strategies in the region through to the end of 2015. The most obvious of these is the Tafaigata Landfill in Samoa, which has
made a major improvement in waste management in the country and serves as a model for other medium to large island countries in the region. Similar improvements have been made to landfills in the Federated States of Microneasia
(FSM) and Palau.

But it’s not just landfills that are being improved. At least some Pacific Islands are turning their attention to the 3Rs of reduce, reuse and recycle. “Reducing the amount of rubbish that households generate is essential”, explains Sheppard. “This can be easily achieved by compositing green waste, and can be helped by a conscious reduction in the amount of disposable products that are purchased. Reusing repaired consumer goods such as television sets, refrigerators and computers may be another important way of reducing the amount of solid waste generated in local communities.”
In addition, recycling programmes are gradually being implemented within the region. Success stories include the ‘I Recycle’ campaign in the Republic of the Marshall Islands, which has provided recycling bins and a collection service for aluminium cans, and the introduction of an ongoing scrap metal recycling scheme in the Cook Islands, which exports around 12 tonnes of scrap metal to New Zealand each year.

The biggest move towards change, though, is the Kaoki Mange! (Return the Rubbish) Project set up in Kiribati to recycle aluminium cans, PET bottles and lead acid batteries using a container deposit scheme. Back in 2002, the Foundation for the Peoples of the South Pacific Kiribati (FSPK) wrote a proposal to conduct a feasibility study into launching a recycling operation in Kiribati. It was to be funded by Canada Fund.

“I happened to be working in the area and conducted the study for FSPK”, says Alice Leney, Project Coordinator for the Kiribati Recycling Project. “The original proposal envisaged some kind of remanufacturing in Kiribati, given the large proportion of aluminum [sic] cans, I recommended that a container deposit system be set up.” However, this required finance. “FSPK…[managed] to keep going for 18 months, thanks to a variety of small grants ($1,000 - $35,000) from a range of donors, before the United Nations Development Programme agreed to fund the main implementation phase of the system in 2004”, she explains.

As such, dealing with waste has become a much higher profile issue in the last couple of years in Kiribati, and the Kaoki Mange! Project is now well known to the people of Tarawa, the capital of Kiribati. “The campaign promotes simple, clear messages using things like catchy radio songs, newspapers, and community theatre groups. Although there has not been a formal assessment of the Kaoki Mange! campaign, it has clearly already had a major impact on cleaning up Tarawa”, says Sheppard. The container deposit scheme is paying people to remove cans and plastic bottles from the environment and the new Kaoki Mange! materials recovery facility is shipping material to Australia.  
And it looks like, despite all the barriers, other South Pacific countries are following Kiribati’s lead: Kaoki Mange! has already provided a model for a similar system in parts of the FSM, while Fiji is also in the process of implementing a container deposit legislated system.