Marianna Nigra, Head of UNHRD Innovation Lab at the World Food Programme (WFP), outlined the realities of operating in disaster and conflict settings: “Humanitarian responses are highly time-sensitive, and waste management is rarely prioritised during the critical first weeks of an emergency. Yet plastic waste can quickly become both a hazard and a barrier to effective aid delivery.”
Emergency situations often combine challenging environmental, cultural and societal factors with logistical, coordination and funding constraints compounding opportunities to address the problem of plastics. The workshop helped to crystalise these key barriers, including limited access to energy, complex waste streams and the need for technologies that can operate reliably with limited infrastructure, and to catalyse new collaborations capable of delivering practical solutions.
The discussion reflects a growing recognition across the humanitarian sector that environmental sustainability should be integrated into emergency response planning. UNHRD's Harmless Plastics project is already exploring solutions through technologies such as bailers, injectors and mini-factories capable of processing plastic waste in humanitarian environments. Participants explored how product design, technical effectiveness, energy efficiency and material choices could improve waste management and increase the value recovered from discarded materials.
