Waste Sector Green Growth Action National Action Plan 2021-2025 (GG-NAP).

This Green Growth National Action Plan (GG-NAP) for the waste sector is a part of the Jordanian agenda, including five other Action Plans, aiming at implementing the National Green Growth Plan (NGGP) in the main six green growth sectors (the others are Agriculture, Energy, Tourism, Transport, and Water). This GG-NAP identifies 14 sector sub-objectives that serve to mainstream the overarching green growth objectives into waste sector policies and investments. In particular, the five national green growth objectives (1. Enhanced Natural Capital; 2. Sustainable Economic Growth; 3. Social Development and Poverty Reduction; 4. Resource Efficiency; and 5. Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation) are translated into the following 14 sector sub-objectives (i) minimize the emission of pollutants (gaseous, liquid, and solid) through the final disposal of waste; (ii) ensure adequate collection and treatment of hazardous wastes; (iii) reduce the adverse impacts of waste and landfills on the ecosystems; (iv) support the development of SMEs and access to sustainable waste services; (v) increase private sector investment and innovation in the waste value chain; (vi) promote awareness and behavior change in government, business, and society towards a circular economy; (vii) increase the government’s capacity to implement evidence-based policies and incentives; (viii) increase the number of inclusive decent, green jobs in the waste sector; (ix) enhance the rate of labor market formalization of the waste sector to enhance economic inclusion and protection of workers; (x) mainstream the concepts of reduction in waste generation, recycling, and re-use; (xi) increase the amount of waste diverted from landfills toward recycling and re-use; (xii) promote innovation in technology and processes; (xiii) reduce greenhouse gas emissions from landfills and dumpsites, particularly methane gas resulting from decomposed organic matter; and (xiv) improve the resilience of waste management and treatment infrastructure to climaterelated disasters (such as floods). For the purpose of this Action Plan, actions are presented in three ways: as enabling actions, as an investment, and as a combination of the two.
To make agriculture more sustainable, the Plan proposes to divert agricultural waste from Municipal Solid Waste streams.
In order to increase the resilience of livelihoods to disasters, main interventions will be directed to (i) divert organic waste from Municipal Solid Waste streams to reduce landfill based GHG emissions; (ii) increase individual and institutional capacity to manage hazardous waste; (iii) improve management of construction and demolition waste and identify opportunities to produce clean construction materials locally, and better techniques to reduce waste generation; (iv) implement a pilot extended producer responsibility program for e-waste leading to the recovery of valuable materials (such as glass, gold, copper, and silver, among others) in order to contribute to reducing greenhouse gas emissions and saving resources, by reducing the extraction of raw materials; (v) develop a joint public-private roadmap to transition to reduce the use of single-use plastics; and (vi) develop a roadmap to transition toward green jobs in the waste sector.
As for Governance, it will be necessary (i) elaborate integrated waste management approaches, including the establishment of a National Multi-stakeholder Steering Committee on waste management involving the private sector, NGOs, academia, and government to contribute to the development of strategic environmental assessment (SEA) and to support the design and implementation of the new strategy and vision; (ii) develop the National Monitoring Information System for Municipal Solid Waste (MSW), which will collect and share data on MSW across the country, providing an evidence base for tariff setting and policy planning; and (iii) establish a national center for excellence on waste management and circular economy to promote innovation, training, research, investment, and policy work.