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The Cook Islands Waste Analysis Reoirt provides a comprehensive overview of the current state of waste generation, composition and management across the country. It serves as a foundational document to guide policy formulation, infrastructure development and stakeholder coordination toward a more efficient, inclusive and sustainable waste management system. Data and information captured in this report is guided by the overarching Regional Waste Data Collection, Monitoring and Reporting Framework (DCMR)

Waste data collation analysis and reporting for the Cook Islands National Waste Audit Analysis report was guided bu the overarching Regional Waste Data collection, Monitoring and Reporting (DCMR) Framework for the Pacific Island countries and territories (PICT). The implementation of the DCMR Framework ensure that waste data is collected, analysed and reported in a consistent and reliable way across the Pacific

Sustainable financing systems, such as the Cook Islands Advanced and disposal fee, are legislative instruments designed to create a way to sustainably fund waste management and recycling.

Cook Islands is composed of 15 islands with a total land area of approximately 23,600ha. which fall naturally into northern and southern groups. The total population at the 1991 census was 18,552, the overwhelming majority of whom live in the southern group, principally on Rarotonga. The area of the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) is over 1.8 million square kilometres. Though the recent rapid development of a black pearl industry in Cook Islands has been impressive, in general terms the marine resources in Cook Islands' EEZ have yet to be fully developed. Fisheries and marine resources are predominantly utilised by Cook Islanders on a subsistence and artisanal basis. Responsibility for these resources is vested in the (Minister) Ministry of Marine Resources (MMR), headquartered at Avatiu, Rarotonga. Outer islands with fisheries personnel are Pukapuka, Manihiki, Aitutaki, Penrhyn, Palmerston, Mitiaro, and occasionally, Mangaia.

Rarotonga and Aitutaki form the summits of separate volcanic masses rising from depths of 4000 m, at which depth the cones are 45-55 km in diameter (Summerhayes and Kibblewh 1966, 1967).The lower slopes of the cones average 15-25 increasing to 30 in the upper 750 m and becoming very steep the surface reef is approached. The Mauke-Aitutaki line of islands is thought to be of early Tertiary age: the surface volcanics are much eroded, with a subdued topography, or are capped with limestones (Wood, 1967; Wood and Hay, 1970). On Rarotonga, where the relief is much stronger (maximum altitude 640 m), radiometric ages of 2.3-2.8 million years date the 1 as Pliocene (Tarling, 1967). Mangaia, with a cap of Oligoce Miocene limestones, must be much older (Marshall, 1927). Evi dence from the deep-sea drilling programme indicates that th ocean floor in the area of the southern Cooks is Paleogene (22.5-65 million years) in age (Winterer, 1973), thus provid a maximum age for the islands. It is probable that the gross history of the Cooks resembles that of other, better-known reef-capped Pacific volcanic cones known to have been initia in the early Tertiary.