What is this tool intended for?

This toolkit is intended to support municipal officials, policymakers, urban planners, and development financiers in Designing and implementing strategies to reduce methane emissions from organic municipal solid waste. It is specifically aimed at those responding to commitments under the Global Methane Pledge and the COP29 Declaration to Reduce Methane from Organic Waste (ROW Declaration), which call for significant reductions in waste methane by 2030. Rather than providing operational step-by-step instructions, the toolkit offers a comparative policy and planning framework to help decision-makers understand which organic waste management strategies are most feasible, cost-effective, and appropriate for their context.

How does this tool work?

The toolkit is a written guidance document (PDF) organized into thematic sections. It introduces six organic waste management strategies and then systematically compares them across multiple dimensions at three scales (small, medium, and large):

•        Processing time: how long each strategy takes to process organic waste at each scale

•        Technical requirements: regulations and permits; infrastructure needs

•        Environmental aspects: methane reduction potential

•        Economic aspects: financial rationale; scalability

•        Social aspects: job creation potential; skills and entry barriers

•        Challenges and opportunities specific to each strategy

The toolkit also includes real-world success stories from countries including Japan, South Korea, Chile, Indonesia, India, the USA, Costa Rica, Brazil, Peru, Cote d'Ivoire, and Denmark. It concludes with six key recommendations for policymakers and a bibliography of 95 sources. It is an analogue, browser-accessible tool requiring no Software.

Who might use this tool and with which types of stakeholders?

The primary target users are:

•        Municipal officials and waste management department heads responsible for organic waste policy and planning

•        Urban planners and environmental engineers Designing organic waste treatment systems

•        Development financiers, donors, and climate fund managers assessing investment options in the waste sector

•        National and sub-national policymakers working on methane reduction commitments

•        NGOs and civil society organizations advocating for or supporting community-based waste solutions

The toolkit is Designed to be used in engagement with waste pickers and informal sector workers, community groups, market operators, agro-industrial actors, and agricultural stakeholders who are part of the organic waste value chain.

What stages of a process can this tool support?

The toolkit supports the following planning and implementation stages:

•        Strategy scoping and selection: comparing six organic waste management strategies across multiple criteria to identify which options are most suitable for a given context

•        Policy and regulatory planning: understanding permitting requirements and regulatory Frameworks for each strategy at different scales

•        Infrastructure and investment planning: assessing infrastructure needs, financial rationale, and scalability for budget and investment decisions

•        Community and stakeholder engagement planning: understanding job creation potential, entry barriers, and community engagement requirements for each strategy

•        Monitoring and reporting: understanding methane reduction performance indicators for tracking progress towards national or international commitments

What skills, capabilities and resources are required to use this tool?

The toolkit requires no specialized Software or data inputs. It is a PDF document accessible via an internet browser. Users need:

•        Literacy in English (the language in which the toolkit is published)

•        Basic familiarity with municipal waste management concepts and policy processes

•        Access to a device capable of viewing PDF files

For more advanced application, such as selecting and sizing a specific strategy for a municipality, users will benefit from knowledge of local waste generation data, existing regulatory Frameworks, land availability, and market conditions for organic waste outputs. The toolkit guides users on what contextual information is relevant to gather, but does not itself provide analytical tools for quantitative modelling or site-specific Design.

Where can this tool be used?

The toolkit is intended for global use, with relevance wherever municipalities face challenges in managing Organic solid waste and wish to reduce methane emissions. It draws on Case studies from a wide range of country contexts, including high-income (USA, Japan, South Korea, Denmark), middle-income (Brazil, Indonesia, Costa Rica), and lower-middle-income countries (India, Peru, Cote d'Ivoire). The strategies covered; from simple household Composting to large-scale Anaerobic digestion and landfill biocovers, span a range of resource and infrastructure contexts, making the toolkit applicable in urban and peri-urban settings across different income levels and geographies.

Case examples of where this tool has been used

The toolkit was published in September 2025. No external evaluations of its use in planning processes are yet documented. However, the toolkit itself documents 13 real-world success stories of organic waste management strategies, drawn from the following countries and contexts:

•        Japan and South Korea: regulatory systems for recycling 36–43% of food waste as animal Feed

•        Chile (Fundación Realim): food waste-to-Feed circular model integrating social and environmental goals

•        Indonesia (Surabaya): decentralized Composting diverting up to 40 tonnes/day via household bins and community groups

•        India (Bengaluru, Hasiru Dala): decentralized Composting supporting formalization of over 8,500 waste pickers

•        USA (San Francisco): mandatory Composting system diverting over 80% of city waste, avoiding ~90,000 tCO2e/year

•        Costa Rica (Lombrictica): commercial vermiCompost enterprise supplying agricultural markets since 2002

•        Brazil (R4 Project, Rancho Queimado): household Composting reducing organic landfill disposal by 25%

•        Peru (Lima, CCAC study): feasibility Assessment for BSF plant processing 250 tonnes/day of market waste

•        Cote d'Ivoire (NGO Living Soils, Grand Bassam): decentralized BSF outgrowers model diverting 30 tonnes/month

•        Indonesia (Neglasari, Bandung): collaborative BSF and Composting system processing 500–700 kg organic waste/day

•        Brazil (Rio de Janeiro, Caju Ecopark): Anaerobic digestion processing 4,300 tonnes of organic waste in 2024

•        Denmark (Klintholm landfill): biocover achieving 80% average methane oxidation over 4,800 m2, maintained for 6+ years