Rising tide of rubbish and wastes key problem for small island states – UN agencies

From discarded beer cans turning pristine shores blue green to old sofas blocking lush creeks, the world’s small island states are facing another key problem – a rising tide of rubbish and wastes – and need urgent international aid to deal with it, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) said today.

As if rising sea levels, over-fishing, water shortages and inadequate sanitation service were not enough, these countries now see waste threatening not only public health but also their livelihoods, according to studies presented to the 8th Special Session of UNEP’s Governing Council and the Global Ministerial Environment Forum in Jeju, Republic of Korea.

Many small island developing States (SIDS) are dependent on income from tourists, and visitors are less likely to return to an island or recommend it to friends if the landscape, shoreline and coastal waters are littered with plastics, old cans, discarded sofas and other industrial and household rubbish, UNEP noted.

“Small islands across the Caribbean, Indian Ocean and the Pacific are some of the most vulnerable nations on Earth,” UNEP Executive Director Klaus Toepfer said.

“Handling solid wastes from industry, households and tourism is emerging as another issue with which they need advice and help,” he added, noting they were already threatened by extreme weather and rising sea levels due to global warming. “Such wastes are not only unsightly and a threat to wildlife, they can also contaminate rivers and ground waters as they slowly degrade.”

The Pacific island of Nauru, for example, now has a “blue green shoreline,” but this has nothing to do with it being next to a beautiful azure sea, UNEP noted. The colour is caused by mounds of discarded Fosters and Victoria beer cans.

One study, a booklet entitled UNEP and Small Island Developing States: 1994-2004 and Future Perspectives, estimates that since the early 1990s the levels of plastic wastes on SIDS has increased fivefold. It points out that problems of rubbish and litter are part of a wider waste crisis. For example, 90 per cent of wastewater is discharged untreated from islands in the Caribbean. In parts of the northeast Pacific, the level of untreated sewage is 98 per cent.

Another report, UNEP’s Global International Waters Assessment (GIWA), notes that a short walk along any coastline close to human habitation in the Pacific Islands will reveal many example of inappropriate waste disposal, while for Indian Ocean Islands “the most critical issue for the States in the region is the growing problem of solid wastes.”