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Practicing landfill stress reduction

8/6/2009

By Jenique Millington

Barbadians have yet to understand the viability of sorting their garbage into sections of materials that can be reused, including plastic, glass, newspaper and other refuse, to reduce the amount of material entering our dumps.

The attitude which has long stood, that from the time garbage leaves their hands it is no longer their business what happens to it because it is the job of the Sanitation Service Authority personnel to take care of it, must come to an end.

It’s the same premise that allows persons to throw garbage out of their car windows, while driving along the highways and by-ways of this island; out of sight, out of mind.

Information on the close to overflowing Mangrove dump, the question of the viability of Greenland as a landfill site and the ever-increasing amount of refuse that Barbadians generate daily are all issues that crop up time after time.

On a 166-square mile country, that is pushing 260 000-plus and with the growing attitude of “mash up and buy back” instead of repairing, it is no wonder that we have and will continue to have a problem with waste disposal for years to come.

There has got to be a more stringent practice of recycling in this island, if we are ever going to control the amount of garbage being placed on its valuable yet dwindling land resource.

It seems as though, with the new recycling centre, there will be a considerable dent made in the number of reusable items heading to our landfills on a daily basis, but the onus still remains with Barbadians to sort their own garbage.

I made the suggestion a few years back to have a new entity, or an extended unit of the Sanitation Service Authority, which collected these recyclable items on appointed days, to ensure that those individuals such as the elderly population, who might not have transportation, could still do their part in reducing the garbage loads making their way to the landfill.

I am making it once more.

If we can reduce our waste by perhaps 80 percent, there would be a better chance that this debate on using Greenland would not come to fruition until a few centuries from now.

In addition, I firmly believe that until we start enforcing some fines for littering, this situation will continue to be pervasive.

I always marvel at the cleanliness of the streets of Toronto, which boasts a population of over 2.5 million, almost ten times the amount of people in this island.

Their Clean Streets Litter Prevention Program, an initiative of the City of Toronto and a number of private sector partners, came on stream in 2003, whereby persons would get fined CDN $130 for littering.

If it affects their pockets, persons are more likely to respond to and obey regulations against this unsightly practice.

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as of close 9/15/2009


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