Waste Management For Humanitarians: List of Excellent Free Courses
Waste management is an essential aspect of greening our humanitarian aid responses, yet it is often overlooked or in some occasions poorly managed. In the series I created on this blog on free open-access online courses for humanitarians, it’s about time to address waste management for humanitarians. To address this gap in knowledge and skills, a growing number of organizations and platforms are offering free open-access online courses on waste management for humanitarians.
As always, these lists will always be incomplete, please let me know what else to include. I highlighted and featured some of the best free online courses available for humanitarians looking to improve their waste management skills. By addressing waste management in our sector properly, we enable more sustainability and environmental protection, reduced public health risks, and more effective and efficient humanitarian aid responses.
Whether you are a seasoned aid worker or new to the field, these courses might offer valuable insights and practical guidance on managing waste in a crisis setting. This list on waste management follows the list published two weeks ago on free courses on sustainability and greening humanitarian responses (available by clicking here). Other related course lists are available on Water, Sanitation and Hygiene, as well as Logistics and supply chains. (Please take a look for all in this series here.)
Some general courses that I relish to recommend to start with, around global public health and global environmental health would be the following: Impacts of the Environment on Global Public Health Specialization by University of Michigan, or Global Environmental Management by Technical University of Denmark.
General Waste Management Courses and Waste Management for Humanitarians
- Waste Management and Circular Economy by UNITAR (1 day)
- Municipal Solid Waste Management in Developing Countries by École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (22 hours)
- Solid Waste Management by WBGx (15 hours)
- Waste Management and Critical Raw Materials by TU Delft (30 hours)
- Safe waste Management by DSC (30 minutes)
- Integrated Waste Management for a Smart City by IIT Kharaghpur
- From Data to Tangible Impact: Achieving Waste SDGs by 2030 by UN-Habitat
Plastic Waste Management Courses
- Plastic Waste and the Basel Convention by UN Climate Change Learning Partnership – UN CC:Learn
- Cities and Marine Plastic Pollution: Building a circular economy by UN ESCAP
- Marine Litter and Plastic Polution Legal Frameworks by UN Environment and OneOceanHub
- Sustainable Packaging in a Circular Economy by TU Delft (20 hours)
Medical Waste management courses
- Standard precautions: Waste management by OpenWHO
- Healthcare Cleaning, Decontamination and Waste Management by Alpha Academy
- Healthcare Waste Management and Disposal by NHS England
- Healthcare Waste elearning by NHS Grampian
e-Waste management courses
- How to prevent e-waste? by UN Climate Change Learning Partnership – UN CC:Learn
- An Introduction to E-waste Policy by ITU Academy
- An introduction to the e-waste challenge by ITU Academy
- Addressing the e-waste challenge through data and statistics by ITU Academy
- Designing Electronics for Recycling in a Circular Economy by TU Delft (12 hours)
- E-Waste and Battery Recycling: Technology, Design, and Challenges by EIT
Other Hazardous and Toxic waste management courses
- Introductory Course to the Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and their Disposal and Regional Instruments on Hazardous Wastes by UNEP
- Introductory Course to the Rotterdam Convention on the Prior Informed Consent Procedure for Certain Hazardous Chemicals and Pesticides in International Trade by UNEP
- Introductory Course to the Minamata Convention on Mercury by UNEP
- Spent Fuel and Radioactive Waste Management, Decommissioning and Environmental Remediation by IAEA
Other waste management courses
- Massive Open Online Course on Marine Litter by OU and UNEP
- Waste management and environmentalism in China by Tilburg University (8 hours)
- Advanced Diploma in Wastewater Treatment and Recycling by NPTEL (20 hours)
- Sustainable Resource Recovery from Used Water by Tsinghua University and the University of Queensland
- Water and Wastewater Treatment Engineering: Biochemical Technology by Tsinghua University (50 hours)
- Biological Principles in Wastewater Treatment by Purdue University (35 hours)
- Introduction to Faecal Sludge Management by École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (21 hours)
- From Waste to Value: How to Tackle Food Waste by University of Reading and EIT Food (9 hours)
- Food Waste Prevention! by UN Climate Change Learning Partnership – UN CC:Learn
- Upcycling: From Green Ideas to Starting a Business by Minca Ventures
- Upcycling and the Circular Economy: Ghanaian Creative Solutions to Global Textile Waste by the Hopenclass and the Revival