On going with the context of trainings schedule of our Project “Social Center for Waste Management in the City of Battambang”- SAB, we hold a TOT (training of trainers) in cooperation with the Thma Koul, district governor of Battambang Province from Tuesday, 27^th of July until Friday, 30^th of July. For this workshop, sustainable solid waste management in Battambang, all related authorities were invited to join.

     The workshop was invited for welcoming and opening speech by Mr. Sam Nieng, district governor of Thma Koul and Mr.Chau Kim Heng, director of COMPED Organization. The participants were the representatives of Authorities as well as office governor and school director. The training focused on the following main issues and still concerning as they are listed below:

WHAT IS WASTE?

     Waste is all items that people don't have any use for, which they either intend to get rid or discarded of. Additionally, wastes are such items which people are require to discard, for example because of their hazardous properties.

WHAT IS WASTE MANAGEMENT?

     Waste management is the collecting, transporting, processing, recycling or disposal, and monitoring of waste materials. The term usually relates to materials produced by human activity, and is generally undertaken to reduce their effect on health, the environment or aesthetics. Waste management is also carried out to recover resources from it. Waste management can involve solid, liquid, gaseous or radioactive substances with different methods and fields of expertise for each.

     Waste is still a problem for Cambodia and other countries, so waste management is an essential key-issue which we need to work on to deal with the main problems that come out of the waste problem. The amount of people is increasing, the problem getting worse. According to the report of the City of Battambang,100 tons waste were produced per day there. Besides this, the area where waste is transported are provided and covered maybe 50% and people in other parts of the town throw their waste into the public area without collection is done afterwards. Based on a case study on waste production in the City of Battambang, the amount of organic waste, which can be composted, makes 65% to 75% from the whole waste amount, the recyclable waste 10%-15% and the inorganic and non-recyclable waste between 15%-25%. So if we separate all this waste we can reduce the amount of waste that needs to be dumped on the landfill, simultaneously we extend the run time of the dump site and protect the environment.

     The workshop is shown all the experiences, implementation on waste management and other difficult problems according to the wrong storage of waste and dangerous waste such as battery and medical waste. COMPED also shared the experience to all the participants how to organize a high sustainable transport service. We have to encourage the waste collection- and transport company with possible fee for implement and provide a good service and on the other side, we have to consider that the landfill should not be too far away from the collection area, otherwise the cost will increase very fast. Additionally, A good road condition is also a basic need. Furthermore we have to build up special human resources, we educated and shared experienced on related fields in waste management.

     The participants and orators of the workshop discussed and exchanged a lot of ideas with mentioning on many difficult problems in the past as well as nowadays with waste management. Everybody’s aim was to find a good solution to develop the environmental situation of the Thma Koul district. During the workshop the volunteer of COMPED organization from Germany, Ms. Janni Fackeldey and Ms. Nora Koschorreck hold a presentation about experiences with the waste management in Germany. The aim of the presentation was to show the participants how a single person can change a lot and help the environment as well as implementing the basics for waste management, for example separating, composting by them self. After everybody did his contribution, the government can build on that.
 
     After four Days, the workshop was successfully ended, we shared the knowledge and experiences with waste management to all participants in the Sangke district and we hope this input of new ideas will find its way and become visible in the future by creating a creative and new solutions to deal with the waste problem in Cambodia.