Background
It would be no exaggeration to suggest that almost all human activity creates some kind of waste requiring management attention in human—particularly urban—settlements. So long as its constituents were mainly organic and biodegradable, the problem was largely resolved by judiciously letting Nature play her role—through the action of micro-organisms, sunlight, scavengers and flowing water. With increase in consumption, and with the large-scale advent in everyday life of non-biodegradable materials, hazardous chemicals and waste materials including those containing heavy metals and those giving off harmful radiations, the situation has drastically changed not only in urban but also in rural areas.

On the one hand the composition of waste is now more complex, with contributions from domestic, commercial, industrial and institutional sources. On the other hand its concentration in the environment is at a scale with which neither the forces of Nature nor traditional human-devised methods can cope. No longer can a river cleanse itself of pollutants within a few kilometres of flow from the point at which they were introduced. Untreated effluents and exhausts from industries and indiscriminately discarded pathogenic material can irreversibly damage soil, aquifers and the atmosphere, with consequences ranging from human and animal health hazards to reduction of vast areas of life-supporting floral wealth to wastelands and, at a global scale, drastic changes in natural cycles leading to major environmental disasters. Humanity today is despoiling Nature more rapidly than she can regenerate herself.

All this bodes ill for the sustenance of the environment and for the path of development on which we have embarked. To explore ways of averting the apocalypse must surely be a key item on the agenda for the UN Decade of Education for a Sustainable Future. The present workshop will have achieved quite a lot if it manages to set such an agenda. And the prescriptions it comes up with must not be merely curative; they must stress prevention and participation, and be integral to the paradigm of education for a sustainable future.

Workshop Goals

1. To develop a consensus that while WM is a problem cutting across ‘developed-vs.-developing’ country dichotomies, its manifestations vary from place to place and need unique solutions appropriate to their contexts.
2. To emerge with a manifesto of essential actions in WM necessary for setting an ESF agenda
3. To recognize that waste is a resource misplaced, and therefore its ‘treatment’ rather than 'disposal' needs to be focussed upon.

Workshop Objectives

1. To recognise, delineate and endorse the issues and challenges in addressing WM sustainably
2. To recognise and delineate the different approaches to WM and define standards of performance.
3. To identify educational needs of different stakeholders vis-à-vis WM
4. To identify target groups for in-service training in WM and the channels to access them
5. To identify the minimum essential components of WM in different streams of formal education at different levels
6. To identify the pedagogical tools to implement an ESF strategy for WM
7. To devise evaluative criteria for the proposed strategy

Sub-groups/Themes (Technical Sessions)

The three subgroups discussed (a) issues and challenges, (b) technologies and alternatives, and (c) capacity building, education and awareness for participation in management of:

1. Municipal Solid Waste
2. BMWM
3. Hazardous Chemical Wastes

Major Areas of Discussion

Issues in waste management with respect to eco-friendliness, social justice, institutional structures, appropriate technology, economic viability.

Outcomes

Strategies for

• improved participation by all stakeholders in Waste Management;
• constructive involvement of civil society in addressing the problem comprehensively; and
• building sustainable partnerships between citizens, civic authorities, professionals and entrepreneurs for effective, economically viable and socially equitable waste management.