Solid Waste Solutions in Rural Alaska::
Introduction and Acknowledgements:

Introduction:
This document seeks to provide examples from rural Alaska that will allow villages to take the relevant issues and make local decisions of how best to allot their public health and solid waste management resources and which waste type components are best addressed short-term and which waste type components are best addressed long-term. Community residents can be educated by well-informed staff that their participation in backhaul is highly desirable (and often leads to participation in other useful activities), but carrying out individual sound practices daily with their waste disposal, such as care in access maintenance, minimizing the affects of erosion and flooding, ceasing in-town barrel burning, keeping away from the dump site during burn hours if burning occurs, and reducing purchase and generation of toxic materials, produces a much more substantial and lasting impact on health and environmental risk reduction.

Detailed information for the topics addressed in this booklet can be found throughout web site resources such as www.zender-engr.net and www.ccthita-swan.org. The intent of this booklet is to compile brief explanations to high risk situations that may be common in rural Alaska villages and offer examples of how some villages have addressed these issues. We have only touched a handful of villages in preparing this document and hope that by reading through these success stories, you may be encouraged to send your pictures and stories to stories@zendergroup.org. Zender Environmental Health Group, a non-profit, will collect your stories to share with other Villages, what you have learned by posting to solid waste websites, and developing future informational booklets specific to rural Alaska issues. Your information will not be incorporated without contacting you first to make sure that what is written is okay and that you are credited.

Acknowledgements:
Sincere thank you to all the Alaska Tribes that have worked with the Institute for Tribal Environmental Professionals and Zender Environmental to document and share their successes and challenges presented in this document. We are grateful for your time and encouraged by your efforts in your communities. We would also like to acknowledge US Environmental Protection Agency for granting the funding to make this booklet possible. Additional thanks is extended to Joe Sarcone, USEPA Alaska Operations Office, Rural Sanitation Coordinator, for assisting with the conception of this booklet, providing written explanations, and connecting us with people in rural Alaska that have been successful in their efforts to improve the health of their people and environment.