Dear Editor,
It is heartening to see efforts by Director Walter Narine and team of the Mayor and City Council’s Department of Solid Waste. The Department has conceptualized a compost project that if actualized could be monetized and become an additional revenue stream for the municipality while playing a huge role in the holistic health of our environment.
More recently, Mr. Narine and team at our recent municipal Health Fair demonstrated the positive effects of waste separation by converting organic waste into fertilizers through a simple composting mechanism; which it is hoped will be rolled out to Primary Schools in the city shortly. The Department’s offering at the Fair included a biodigester, and mats made from plastic bags.
These efforts underline the importance of Government’s draft strategy, “Putting Waste In Its Place: A National Integrated Solid Waste Management Strategy for the Cooperative Republic of Guyana 2017 – 2030”. I had offered, in these pages, that that strategy is comprehensive, and in our transition to a Green economy signals the need for a holistic approach to solid waste management.
Additionally, what will be vital to the sustainability of this integrative approach will be its evaluation and monitoring not only in a Solid Waste Management Authority in coordinating the implementation but also in performance evaluation that is fact based and real-time, which makes use of the technological tools at our disposal. This management process must be data, software driven.
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations in its publication, “How to Feed the World 2050” states, “By 2050 the world’s population will reach 9.1 billion, 34 percent higher than today. Nearly all of this population increase will occur in developing countries. Urbanization will continue at an accelerated pace, and about 70 percent of the world’s population will be urban (compared to 49 percent today). Income levels will be many multiples of what they are now. In order to feed this larger, more urban and richer population, food production (net of food used for biofuels) must increase by 70 percent.”
Increased production and consumption use to be synonymous with increased waste but this needs no longer be so. And yet, we still have a very far way to go as preliminary estimates indicate the over the last year our municipality produced 54431.05 tons of waste which costs tax payers of the city $387,209,194. In a Department Report a notation stated, “In the period November 15 to December 31, 2016 the Department has recorded an increase in amount of bulky waste in all 10 groups by 23% (2756T) as compared to the same period in 2015.”
The high cost and increase in solid waste are in keeping with global trends and underscored the dire need for interventions at all levels.
From the data available consideration should be had whether just collection of waste ($300-$400 per emptied barrel) should be the methodology or a weighted system. For instance, in April 2016, 1674 tons of waste exacted $18,203,000 and $16,685,280 respectively for Cevons and Purans contractors as compared with the September 2016 collection of 3870.5 tons of waste for $18,889,080 and $16,117,780 for respective contractors.
We can appreciate there is a need not only to efficiently collect, remove and dispose of solid waste, but the larger objective has to be geared towards consuming goods responsibly and producing less solid waste by aiming to Reuse, Reduce and Recycle. This thrust has to engage a more rigorous, coherent legislative framework which focuses on education and enforcement.
There is a school of thought that suggests that on both of the latter fronts, education and enforcement, there have been systemic failures and that is why we see a retreat to the old ways now that the effects of the $300M Georgetown Rehabilitation Programme have plateaued. Or could other factors explain why over the last year those citizens attracting the littering penalty under the Municipal and Districts Council Act, Cap 28:01, (279:1:C), only numbered 15 persons, by comparison those persons found under a charge of “Deposit of Waste” numbered 31.
Two important issues to be pursued on the legislative end will be endowing the city with its own Municipal Court for the redress of such local issues and also the remitting of fines to the municipality which goes in tandem with the costs associated with successfully prosecuting such infractions, though in the case of the former there might be a disincentive to pursue this as, for example, fines for litter related offences only amounted to $362,000 over the last year which would be far below the cost of prosecutions, administration and management of such a system.
As levels of consumption increase more attention is being place on solid waste management globally. According to an online article, “Report: Solid waste issues more frequent topic for local governments”, which based its content on a US ‘Waste Alert Report’, “which analyzed 1,699 agendas and minutes from 807 meetings — solid waste or recycling issues came up in 26% of local government meetings during the first quarter of 2017. This information came from municipal, borough and county meetings across 16 largely Western states.”
“The report shows that the most common instances were about financial issues, followed by future planning for facilities and infrastructure and then direct mentions of companies — often relating to franchises. Changes to contracts or regulations were also common themes.”
In effective and efficient Solid Waste Management the stakes are high; the threat to human life and the environment is real in every regard. Standing by and doing nothing is not an option. Yet there is a dire need for our collective strategies to be grounded in reality and as an anchor underlying the national Strategy’s myriad features will be the efficiencies in the coherent interaction of system processes. As a local government Councilor it is my hope that we can bring a rich and robust discussion of this issue to councils across our country, discussions that lead to meaningful action.
Yours faithfully,
Sherod Avery Duncan,
Councillor, Constitutency 14
Municipality of Georgetown
