This new community guide offers practical steps to empower frontline communities and workers in navigating the complexities of battery recycling, understanding the health implications, and questions to ask for participating in decision-making processes. This guide is intended to support communities across the globe that are facing a new battery recycling facility proposal or dealing with impacts of an existing project. 

El Diagnóstico sobre el Manejo de residuos orgánicos en Panamá, su impacto en la reducción de metano y en la agenda climática nacional establece la línea base nacional sobre la gestión de residuos orgánicos en Panamá, conecta compromisos internacionales (París, GMP, ROW, ODS) con marcos legales y planes (Ley 33/2018, Ley 276/2021, PNAC, Hoja de Ruta de Economía Circular) y propone una hoja de ruta para mitigar metano, escalar la valorización y acelerar la economía circular, incorporando además la jerarquía de usos alimentarios para reducir la pérdida y desperdicio de alimentos y contribuir a la seguridad alimentaria.

This study establishes Panama’s national baseline on organic waste management, links international commitments (Paris Agreement, GMP, ROW, SDGs) with legal frameworks and national plans (Law 33/2018, Law 276/2021, PNAC, Circular Economy Roadmap), and proposes a roadmap to reduce methane emissions, scale up valorization, and accelerate the circular economy. It also incorporates the food-use hierarchy to reduce food loss and waste and contribute to food security.

Co-firing biomass is a technology that burns biomass alongside other fuels, typically coal, in existing power plants. This technology presents a different set of complexities and harms. In the context of ADB’s policy to support the early retirement of coal-based power plants—including decommissioning of coal-fired power plants and site redevelopment for new economic activity—co-firing of biomass with power plants, whether from energy crops or biomass waste, poses risks with long-term harms to air quality, local communities, ecosystems and efforts to address the triple planetary crisis of climate change, pollution, and biodiversity loss in a region most vulnerable to these interlinked threats.