An environmentalist in Kiribati has welcomed a new act that will help improve waste management and promote recycling.
The Special Waste Fund Materials Recovery Act was passed this week, and will complement the current Kaoki Mange project which focusses on rubbish as a resource.
The project's coordinator, Alice Leney, says the act will help promote awareness about the benefits of recycling.
"What that does is actually puts a value on the rubbish, or certain items of rubbish. Beverage containers is a common item of litter, but it's also easy to recycle this material. In Kiribati we have an import tarriff that mitigates against beverages in glass so as to encourage aluminium cans in particular which is actually pretty good because of course they're a higher value and we can easily recycle and export them."