An Ebola waste task force has been created by WasteAid International and Disaster Waste Recovery to help meet West Africa’s waste disposal needs in the midst of the Ebola crisis. It’s now calling upon the international wastes management industry for help.
WasteAid International is a new charity set up to bring the resources of the global waste management industry within reach of the development and humanitarian sector.
Its mandate is to connect poor and vulnerable communities around the world with waste management expertise and resources in order to improve economy, social conditions and the local and wider environment.
WasteAid International has partnered with established NGO Disaster Waste Recovery, an organisation focused on waste management in humanitarian crises, to bring together key international experts to connect the resources of the global waste industry to those agencies that are working at the sharp end of the Ebola Crisis in West Africa.
With over 17,000 confirmed cases, and over 6,000 deaths, the crisis has had a massive social, economic and environmental impact on the countries that have been hardest hit.
WasteAid International and Disaster Waste Recovery have convened an Ebola Waste Task force to provide assistance in meeting needs that have been identified by international agencies and NGOs, including the United Nations, World Health Organisation, International Solid Waste Association and Medicine San Frontiers.
Key issues identified where waste industry expertise and resource is needed
Include:
- Small scale disposal technology
- Contaminated Sludge management and disposal
- PPE, protocols, training and communications
- Volunteer waste managers who are prepared to travel to affected areas to
help with setting up waste systems on the ground.
Currently financial resources and equipment are being deployed and tens of new
Ebola Treatment Centers are in the process of being built: the most pressing need is now mobilizing the human resources required. Finding health care waste and wastewater experts to be deployed in West Africa is proving particularly problematic.
On 9 December at the inaugural meeting of WasteAid Canada in Vancouver Canada, this campaign was officially launched by Simon Penney, the CEO of WasteAid International and we now ask any interested individuals or corporations who would like to help in any of the ways above to contact ebolawasteresponse@wasteaid.ca ASAP, with a review of experience, how you may be able to help and the availability that you have.
The task group, which is steering this work is made up of key individuals with expertise in medical waste, international development and communications and has put together a structure in order to ensure that any help is directed to where it is needed most and can have the greatest impact.