A regional solid waste management workshop has got underway in Samoa today.
Pacific Forum Island member countries are meeting to review progress on the Regional Solid Waste Strategy and its Action Plan since its adoption in 2005.
The meeting has been organised by the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme or SPREP with funding from Japan's International Cooperation Agency, or JICA.
It will also look at how SPREP can better assist member countries to deal with waste issues in an environmentally sound and financially sustainable way.
SPREP's Pollution Prevention and Waste Management Adviser, Dr Frank Griffin, says the growing amount of waste in the region is just one of so many concerns.
"The quickly diversifying of the type of waste that's being generated in the region which you know increases the toxicity of the waste as well, as we move along. Other issues include things like the lack of legislation to support strategies being put into place and landfill is a problem right across the Pacific region."
SPREP's Dr Frank Griffin
The three-day workshop in Apia ends on November the 7th.
