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Animated Video: The Moana Taka Partnership

Like the rest of the world, small Pacific Island Countries and Territories (PICTs) have adopted consumption-based lifestyles that are heavily dependent on the importation of a large variety and volume of external goods and inputs, including petroleum, machinery, cars, materials, manufactured goods, and even basic foodstuffs.

These imports and associated packaging generate pollution, in the form of solid waste and hazardous materials, including plastics, waste oil, chemicals, electronic waste (e-waste), and bio-medical wastes. With extremely limited land-area, shallow groundwater aquifers and limited waste management infrastructure and technical capacity, dealing with pollution and waste is a major environmental challenge for PICTs.  

In March 2018 international shipping company China Navigation Company Pte Ltd – since renamed as Swire Shipping Pte. Ltd (www.swireshipping.com), signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP), for the ‘Moana Taka’ (ocean waste) Partnership (MTP). The MTP was conceived at the Second UN Environment Assembly and facilitated by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) for improving the management of waste within PICTs, by facilitating the shipping of wastes that are hard to manage within the Pacific, including obsolete vehicles, unwanted chemicals (e.g., ozone-depleting substances), waste plastics and e-waste.

MTP helps alleviate the burden of waste on islands in the Pacific by utilising Swire Shipping vessels to fill empty shipping containers to transport non-commercial recyclable waste from islands. This waste is transported to countries with appropriate waste disposal facilities, ensuring that everything from oil to plastics to aerosols are properly recycled.

This partnership is a critical partnership that facilitates a circular economy, by providing access to waste and recycling infrastructure abroad. PacWaste Plus seeks to increase participation in the Moana Taka Partnership by participating countries and encourage members who are serviced by Swire Shipping to investigate the possibility of using MTP to move stockpiles of non-commercial waste.

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