CCAP’s Waste Program launches work with the Municipality of Quito, Ecuador

CCAP’s Waste Program officially launched work with the Municipality of Quito, Ecuador, in July 2017. The overarching goal of this work is to provide direct technical assistance to the city to identify and accelerate the implementation of one sustainable waste management project that can effectively reduce emissions, including Short Lived Climate Pollutants (SLCPs), and result in additional sustainable development benefits in the short term.

Currently, Quito sends more than 2,000 tons of waste per day to the city’s El Inga landfill, of which well over 50% is organic waste. When organic waste is buried in anaerobic conditions in landfills, it decomposes, creating a vector for diseases and releasing a significant amount of methane, a greenhouse gas that is 84 times more potent than CO2 as a climate warming agent (especially over the first two decades after its release). CCAP’s work with Quito will focus on reducing the amount of organic waste sent to landfill and employ it in more productive uses.