The overarching objective of this guidance is to support countries in their efforts to develop or revise their legislation and policies to foster better preparedness and responses, in the event of future pandemics, and to address health and environmental risks associated with waste management.
The guidance draws upon existing waste management guidelines issued by international organizations on key principles of, and approaches to, integrated waste management. It seeks to complement the existing UNEP 2016 Guidelines for Framework Legislation for Integrated Waste Management.
The document also gathers and analyses national experience of measures adopted for COVID-19 waste management, using a combination of in-depth case studies and results from an online survey distributed to the National Focal Points of the Montevideo Programme V. This experience illustrates the different legislative and policy approaches countries have taken to deal with increased quantities of waste and other waste management challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as overall trends in the kinds of measures adopted and areas where challenges arose.