9. Towards a Circular Logistics Partnership: Regional Trade, Waste, and Inter-Sectoral Cooperation

The Pacific Island Countries and Territories (PICT) are responsible for managing ~10% of the world’s oceans, including a third of the Pacific Ocean. The logistics of distance and the lack of economies of scale, are compounding the issues of waste management in the PICT, wherein the wastes streams generated are beyond their capacity to manage. This is particularly more prominent in the case of plastics from packaging and/or designed as single use.

A large majority of the PICT (Fig. 9.1) are too small (in area or population) to justify financially viable recycling plants. The waste streams are often dumped in official, or unofficial, landfill dumping sites. However, the broader issue arises from the impact on the ecology and the changing climate (Chap. 5). The wastes are blown into the surrounding seas by extreme weather, such as storms and cyclones (which now occur in increasing and changing energy and frequency) that pass through the Pacific Islands. Wastes are then ingested by the marine life that the islanders rely on to survive and makes its way up the food chain to the Pacific Islanders. Recent studies show that microplastics have entered human digestive systems, and nanoplastics have entered the human blood system.

A map highlights the countries and territories of the Pacific islands, with their names and boundaries. The Islands include Fiji, Solomon Island, and Marshall Island. The map also highlights Australia and New Zealand.

There are competent, licenced recycling plants around the Pacific Rim. But the small scale and low value of the waste streams in situ means that once all the additional costs of shipping to the Pacific Rim are factored in, it becomes a loss-making venture to send the waste to responsible recycling facilities (Chap. 10). Consequently, the waste remains on the PICT and:

On realizing that Swire Shipping (formally The China Navigation Company [CNCo], which changed name to Swire Shipping Pte. Ltd. [SSL] on the 15th October 2021) (SWIRECNCO 2022) was contributing to the problem by transporting finished, packaged goods into PICT, Swire Shipping took the initiative in collaboration with the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP) (SPREP 2022) to help resolve the issue. SPREP is the regional organization responsible for protecting and managing the environment and natural resources of the Pacific Island states. After significant analysis of the entire logistics systems, SSL determined that as it was repositioning the unloaded, empty containers back to the Pacific Rim (to reload more finished goods), it could also be a part of the solution by shipping waste that was collecting in the PICT back out to responsible, competent, licenced recycling plants. This realization led to the Moana Taka Partnership (Moana Taka Partnerships 2022).

Though there have been research studies in waste logistics for food rescue (Nair et al. 2016, 2017a, 2017b), no such research papers were found with respect to maritime waste logistics. Therefore, careful analysis of such case studies is particularly important. A particular barrier in PICT is the availability of data. Despite this, the systematic approach to leverage existing logistics operations towards improving sustainability is an important case study, that cannot only potentially secure other logistics operations in PICT towards similar goals, but also more broadly globally as part of a public–private Partnership.

With increasing affluence and adoption of urban lifestyles, the 43.7 million people living in the Oceania region, which includes PICTs as well as Australia and New Zealand, naturally and rightly expect higher living standards (see Chap. 14). This typically demands more imported goods, which tend to be consumables, such as food, household goods, electronic goods, and vehicles, and this inevitably leads to an increase in the amount of waste produced.

The situation is further exacerbated by the fact that the PICTs are limited in size and population and have few financially viable options to properly process or recycle waste on the islands. This means that land taken up by the waste could potentially have been better used for agriculture or towards raising economic capacity locally.

The third United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA-3) took place in Nairobi, Kenya in December 2017. The main thematic cluster of UNEA-3 was the “Clean Planet Pledge” with specific reference to ocean plastics and how to prevent them. The messages of the presentations given during that session were very clear:

Furthermore, there are international conventions regulating the transboundary movement of waste to stop its dumping. These are principally the Basel Convention, and the local PICT version that also forbids transport and dumping of nuclear waste, the Waigani Convention (Waigani Convention 2022). However, these conventions do not forbid the transboundary movement of waste but do seek to regulate it, such as to ensure that the waste streams are properly, responsibly, and competently handled at the destination country.

Swire Shipping owns, operates, and manages around 50 general cargo and containerships serving 14 deep-sea or international trade routes in the Pacific Ocean (Fig. 9.2).

A satellite map highlights S W I R E shipping lines that connect regions on the Pacific Ocean to the south and south-east Asian countries and a few with the United States.

Swire Shipping carries a material portion of the finished goods that are imported into the PICT. A large portion of these have plastic and other packaging that is removed and disposed of once the goods reach the ultimate end user. As nearly all of the PICT are too small (in area or population) to financially justify viable recycling plants, these plastic/packaging waste streams are often then dumped into official or unofficial landfill dumping sites, many of which are shallow areas remaining after building materials have been extracted.

SPREP is the secretariat of the Waigani Convention and is the Pacific Regional Centre for the Basel Convention and is thus able to ensure that the required Prior Informed Consent, licenses, exemptions etc. are all in place for all relevant ports before any shipment of cargo is authorized and accepted.

In addition to the principal stakeholders, the PICTs’ national governments, the other key stakeholders comprise the shipping firm and owner of the empty containers, SSL, the regional Intergovernmental body for the Environment, SPREP, plus the Ministries of the Environment (or waste) and in some cases the Ministries for Tourism of the PICT. SPREP was crucial to facilitate the government-to-government interactions. At the same time, it can also connect potential investors and IGOs (e.g., UNEP, UN ESCAP, World Bank, Asian Development Bank, European Union) with the governments on environmental initiatives, such as developing suitable recycling plants.

Shippers of waste stream cargos were also one of the stakeholder groups. A potential shipper could be a recycling company, a non-governmental body, or a government agency. The typical month-long permit application process would be triggered by the shipper which had to reside in an exporting country that was a member of SPREP and/or the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF). The waste shipment exemption application is then made through SPREP.

The partnership between SSL/Swire and SPREP/UNEP was to engineer a “win–win” situation for the two parties, as well as the shippers, the exporting countries’ communities and the destination recycling plants. This was known as the “Moana Taka Partnership” (MTP). Moana is the Polynesian for ocean and taka is the word for circulate in Polynesian, and “waste” in Swahili. The MTP memorandum of understanding (MOU) signed on Global Recycling Day, 2018 established the operational processes by which SSL vessels carry their owned containers, lent pro bono to the shippers to fill with recyclable waste from eligible Pacific island ports (viz. on Swire Shipping’s route network, initially, to avoid complications of transhipment), to then be shipped with pro bono freight fees, so that the waste could be sustainably treated and recycled in suitable ports in Asia Pacific elsewhere on its route network.

Specifically, the MTP focused initially on moving cargos explicitly covered under the Waigani and Basel Convention, an agreement that regulates transboundary movement of defined toxic, poisonous, explosive, corrosive, flammable, eco-toxic, infectious, and radioactive wastes. Under this agreement, PICTs that have insufficient or inappropriate landfill space to store waste, inadequate waste treatment facilities, or lack the financial ability to ship recyclable waste are eligible to apply. Recyclable materials include plastics, aluminium cans, waste oil and ozone depleting substances (ODS), amongst those on the list in the Basel Convention. When the agreement initially took effect it did not support non-hazardous (but still non-commercial) shipments, but it has done so since mid-2019. The fourteenth meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Basel Convention (COP-14, 29 April–10 May 2019) adopted amendments to Annexes II, VIII and IX to the Convention with the objectives of enhancing the control of the transboundary movements of plastic waste and clarifying the scope of the Convention as it applies to such waste. The MTP was instrumental to SPREP in helping to deliver a part of its initiatives toward implementing its Cleaner Pacific goal by the year 2025 (Cleaner Pacific Strategy Plan 2022). It had set aside USD 4 million for waste management system in the region. As part of the MTP agreement, the regional organization could help identify a competent, licensed, willing, and suitable waste stream recycler/waste reception facility/buyer, unless the applicant for shipping the waste out from the Pacific Islands had already identified one.

The UN Environment Programme (UNEP) is the international agency that coordinates the UN's environmental activities, helping developing countries to implement environmentally sound policies and practices. UNEP supported this partnership, and found that it held the potential to help realize several of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) which had been promoted since 2015; in particular the three goals shown in Fig. 9.3.

A chart represents 3 U N sustainable development goals. They are responsible consumption and production, life below water, and life on land with their logos and descriptions.

Through the good offices of SPREP and the Pacific Island Forum (PIF), in contact with the various PICT national Ministries’ of the Environment, there is now a wide knowledge of the MTP amongst those whose business concerns disposal of waste streams. Prior to the introduction of MTP, waste streams had a negative profitability when shipped commercially from places with no disposal facilities to the ports where disposal could be done in a licenced, competent, and sustainable way. The entire negative profitability equation is turned on its head when both the container hire costs and freight charges are waived by the shipping company relocating the empty containers, which it has to do anyway.

A copy of the flow chart for the MTP Charter is shown in Fig. 9.4.

A flowchart of the M T P charter and process begins by receiving form A from the shipper. After processing several steps and satisfying conditions, the waste stream can be shipped under the M T P after checking the importing state on C N C o's shipping schedule routes. If there is no alternate route to the importing state, the waste stream cannot be shipped.

The owner of the waste stream must:

Swire Shipping will then review the application form to determine:

SPREP, as the Pacific Regional Centre of the Basel Convention/Waigani Convention Secretariat, will then:When (and only when) all the above administration is complete can the operation begin.

Currently the company cannot ship to ports outside the Asia–Pacific, or destinations not covered by its schedule routes, as it cannot commit 3^rd party Ship Owners to provide pro bono services. However, and crucially, this partnership is not seen as a revenue line item, but rather an environmental and social investment in its key communities. Consequently, the processes involved are all available, in editable format, for any other like-minded ship owners to rebadge and copy the MTP. Swire Shipping reports that that this has begun to happen in the Pacific Ocean for other PICT not served by Swire Shipping, and is being reviewed by UN Environment for replication for SIDS in both the Indian Ocean and the Caribbean Sea in conjunction with the GEF-funded ISLANDS Waste-free Shipping Programme (see GEF ISLANDS https://​www.​thegef.​org/​newsroom/​press-releases/​island-nations-get-new-lifeline-beat-pollution 2022). This demonstrates the successful public–private partnership offers continued opportunity for replication and growth.

The first shipment (SWIRECNCO Waste Shipment 2022) took place in March 2018, just 115 days from the meeting under an acacia tree at UNEA-3 and when the ink on the MTP agreement had barely dried, on the Swire Shipping vessel, MV Melanesian Pride, from Apia, the capital of Samoa, carrying 2 TEUs (twenty-foot equivalent units) with 56 tonnes of scrap metal, to Brisbane, Australia.

Since then, in 2019 the MTP shipped 50 TEU / 616 tonnes from Australia, Fiji, the Marshall Islands, and Papua New Guinea (PNG), to Australia, Kiribati, Malaysia, Samoa, Singapore, and Vietnam.

A few barriers were discovered including: However, the scalable model and the material impact that garnered broader support, has meant that other shipping companies in the Pacific have begun to adopt this model. If the take-up develops further in this way, it is possible that the partnership can be expanded to encompass movement of waste streams to an expanded destination port network by using two separate shipping lines, with trans-shipment at an intermediate port (in exactly the same way as baggage transfers are possible between two airlines in the same alliance who agree to “inter-line”). UNEP is considering transferring this model to other ocean basins such as the Indian and Caribbean Sea.

One issue that has been very visible as Swire Shipping has taken a deeper interest in under/improperly processed waste in PICT, is the number of abandoned End of Life Vehicles (ELV) observed on every island. To reduce the volume of discarded waste materials, particularly ELV in the PICTs, an integrated logistics supply chain and recycling operation that will enable the ongoing recycling of various waste streams that is sustainable both financially and environmentally is needed.

Geographic presence and logistics network coverage to deliver sustainable outcomes for the communities of the PICTs, now and for the future is critical. Future plans can build on the learning from this partnership. There is an imbalance between the levels of import and exports in the PICTs, and this has resulted in large numbers of ELVs and bulky domestic appliances being abandoned in the region. The Swire MTP proposition detailed earlier is to ‘do better’ with them.

Appropriate disposal to landfill or for resource recovery is currently unsustainable in the PICTs due to the constraints of their wide geographic distribution, the low value and low volume of the scrap available, distance to the relevant markets, lack of public funding, specialist skills, or enterprise to do better, and the presence of Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) as flame retardants in the ELV soft fittings that must be removed prior to recycling to mitigate leakage of toxic compounds into the environment. The aim of the partnership is to ensure on-going delivery of best practice waste minimization methods and best possible outcomes for the environment and the PICTs communities.

However, it is clearly recognized that cleaning up irresponsibly abandoned ELVs is a reactive solution aimed at treating the symptoms and not the cause. It is believed that IGOs helping the PICTs enact legislation that suits them, to encourage responsible disposal at the end of life of the asset will be a material improvement, building off the work that the likes of SPREP have done in the past with the Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) (Extended Producer Responsibility 2022), the circular economy, the life cycle approach and all the other efforts they have made in the past. The authors’ view is that Advance Disposal Fees (ADF) (Advanced Disposal Fees 2022) are the next step on road to the behavioural change, albeit an important one.

It is believed that ADFs are a relatively new concept in the PICTs, with the exception of Tokelau where the idea has yet to be fully developed. It may well be some time before there is any legislation put in motion as a result of Tokelau’s leading work in this area. However, if SSL’s “Project Rivendell” gets the go-ahead, legislation will greatly help to progress this solution. The ownership of the abandoned scrap in each country is a potential obstacle to the viability of this project, as it would be in any region. To overcome this, the project will need support from local governments.

While it would of course be possible for each of the PICTs to set up the legislation individually themselves, we feel this may be inefficient, re-inventing the same wheel. The legislation should be quite similar from country to country, so adopting a similar package avoids the cost in time and money for each single country and territory. The end result of adopting non-common legislation will be to delay the implementation of the project and the clean-up of the islands.

Most businesses in our sector do not involve themselves in lobbying government; it is not Swire Shipping’s desire, or core business or area of expertise. This is where public–private partnerships with inter-governmental bodies, based on the data-backed science and business operations can once again work together to produce a solution that gives wins to the three parties in the Science-Policy-Business area and the key stakeholders of the communities of the PICTs.