The need for waste management expertise is growing as rapidly as our planet’s urban population. It is estimated that 3.5 billion people worldwide lack access to even basic waste services. As the world’s population becomes more and more urban, cities are struggling with how to effectively deal with waste.

There are people with brilliant solutions and deep knowledge, both at the grassroots level and in industry, academia and the public sector. However, much of this expertise is either concentrated in just a few parts of the world, or is known by a wide but disenfranchised group of people. The current methods of sharing expertise and knowledge — such as rigorous reports and global conferences — are limited in their ability to reach a variety of stakeholders and achieve the kind of impact and scale needed to turn around the waste crisis.

Be Waste Wise is a simple idea: use 21st century tools to share expertise globally, opening up high-quality, leading edge thinking to those who have not had access to this expertise. Using open technology like Google+ Hangouts is one of the most powerful and scalable methods to address  today’s expertise dissemination challenge.

Be Waste Wise will conduct online video panels with experts from across the waste spectrum using Google+ Hangouts, broadcast them live, and then publish content for ready use by decision makers, policy analysts, experts and advocates.

Be Waste Wise will be an important tool to decision makers, complementing reports and global conferences as a clear and concise information source.