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Fiji's rural population is decreasing, but solid waste management in rural areas is nevertheless slowly becoming a major concern. Increasing globalization and changing lifestyles have resulted in increased consumption of packaged and processed goods in recent years, including food and other items. Rural areas typically lack appropriate infrastructure and formally organized solid waste management system, resulting in increasing problems relating to solid waste, including impacts on human health and decreasing aesthetic values of rural villages and their surroundings.

The recently enacted Environmental Management Act (EMA) calls for the development of a National Liquid Waste Management Strategy (the National Solid Waste Management Strategy and Action Plan was developed in 2005). The proposed Liquid Waste Strategy will set the direction for sustainable liquid waste management in Fiji, and was developed through a process of wide consultation with all stakeholders involved in the production and the management of liquid waste. The government will take the lead in implementing the strategy, working in close partnership with local government and other key stakeholders.

Due to funding constraints it was decided that the pilot project would be located in the Central Province.When invitations were requested for expressions of interest to host the pilot project, the public in the Central Province was advised that those intending to apply should ensure the environmental issues in their respective villages are relevant to the focal areas and preferably in the same order of importance. Barakau was among the sixty villages that responded. Barakau was chosen as the host site for a number of reasons: (i) the relatively easy access from Port Moresby, (ii) its manageable population size, (iii) environmental issues that are relevant to the IWP focal areas and (iv) the degree of understanding of these environmental concerns by the people and their apparent preparedness to address them.

Human waste management is a major concern in Tuvalu despite decades of promotion of the use of water-seal flush toilets and septic tank systems as the safest and most hygienic way to dispose of human wastes. These systems were promoted as an alternative to the use of the beach for human waste disposal. Unfortunately, the septic tank-based system was introduced in Tuvalu and many other atolls in the Pacific Islands region without regard to the geophysical characteristics of atolls.

Tonga could make economic savings of approximately TOP 6.5 million through improved solid and liquid waste management nationwide. The estimates are based on some key assumptions about functional relationships between the nature and volume of waste and human health effects, waste and the coastal ecosystem and fisheries, as well as the effects of waste on tourism and the aesthetic value residents place on a clean environment. Given the paucity of scientific information, there is an urgent need to collect solid scientific information about the causal relationship between waste and its direct and indirect effects on fisheries, coastal ecosystems and human health. Despite this limitation, the economic values presented in this study can serve as a powerful advocacy tool to better target education and extension programs that advocate for reduction, reuse, and recycling of waste.

There is no shortage of provisions relating to waste management issues in the current laws of Kiribati. While it may be useful to consider the opportunities for recognising the role of the community in waste management under the laws of Kiribati, there would appear to be only limited scope for effective legislative action in this regard. The role of Local Government Councils is clear and this is effectively provided for the in the Local Government Act 1984. If the problem is one of planning, capacity or prioritisation, or any combination of these, then amendment to the laws of Kiribati is unlikely to provide an effective outcome.