TechCollect NZ extends its services by providing support to Pacific Island nations

TechCollect NZ extends its services by providing support to Pacific Island nations

Meeting the challenges of e-waste in Niue and the Pacific Nations

Niue is an island nation located in the Pacific Ocean. It is the world’s 3^rd smallest country by population with only 1,500 inhabitants, many of whom leave during the cyclone season that persists for half the year. Being a small country with very limited resources presents unique and interesting challenges, ones that vary greatly to most Australian communities. One of these challenges relates to the safe and sustainable management of e-waste. Niue has no infrastructure for dealing with hazardous wastes, and so e-waste has accumulated and been stockpiled in several landfill locations for decades.  This covers not just televisions and computers but also a wide range of other e-waste products including whitegoods and household appliances.  Generally, these stockpiles are stored outside and fully exposed to the elements, which in a tropical climate exacerbates the risk to the environment and community.

Taking positive steps

Niue is one of many small island developing states that is part of the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP). SPREP is an organisation that focuses on climate change and environmental issues. It works with members and partners to address environmental management and sustainable development in the region, focusing on climate change resilience, ecosystem and biodiversity protection, environmental governance, and waste management and pollution control. Working through this forum and recognising the need for specialist knowledge, TechCollect NZ was engaged to help design and implement a pilot program that could form the basis of an ongoing solution across the region. TechCollect NZ seized the opportunity to participate and in turn sought assistance from Australia and New Zealand Recycling Platform (ANZRP) to provide some of the necessary know-how needed to bring the project to fruition. Leading this charge from ANZRP was Andrew But, Operations & Compliance Manager, whose Health Safety and Environment (HSE) expertise proved pivotal.

The project in a nutshell: planning and execution

ANZRP, through Andrew, played a lead role in the project which essentially focused on building capacity and transferring knowledge to the local partners so that going forward this community, and others like it, could responsibly manage the issue of e-waste. To bring this to life ANZRP prepared the necessary training materials, provided hands on training, and then demonstrated how the full process should be conducted end to end. Further support and advice also came from the Recycling Group (New Zealand based e-waste recycler), who actively participated in executing the on-island training program, bringing their hands on e-waste recycling knowledge to the table.

The project also involved the provision of tools, training, skills and advice on how to:

• safely fill the legacy e-waste into containers for shipment to New Zealand for recycling
• enable the on-island team to fully manage the process going forward, without further external support.

Andrew observed firsthand some of the unique challenges on this island nation. Aside from being remote (it is only serviced once a week by plane), many of the people are required to work two jobs to support the needs of the island. Reflecting on his experience Andrew appreciated the feedback and buy-in from the local community.

He commented “More often than not, consultants will come in, provide training in a classroom environment and leave. However, on this occasion the local community was grateful that we helped set them up for success by providing advice for all scenarios and even supporting and answering their questions on other diverse waste streams such plastics, lead acid batteries and others. Topping it off was a visit from Dalton Tagelagi, Prime Minister of Niue, who came to see what we were doing, and expressed his appreciation for our visit to the island”.