Hazardous waste

At the recent final Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) disclosure meeting for ExxonMobil’s Payara operation, conservationist Annette Arjoon-Martins questioned officials about the treatment and disposal of hazardous waste, highlighting that there could be serious problems if seepage, for instance, were to occur. Not only are Mrs Arjoon-Martins’ concerns valid, but they should be foremost among considerations given that, according to reports, waste from the Payara operation, when it begins, will be disposed of in a cell at the Haags Bosch landfill site in Eccles; the cell is yet to be constructed.

To say that Guyana has a problem with waste disposal in general is to put it mildly. Le Repentir Landfill, with its constant fires and toxic gas emittances, has not been closed so long as to be forgotten. The Haags Bosch site, originally touted as state-of-the-art, and boasted as the answer to the city’s solid waste issues has had endless problems, including a huge fire in December 2015. And this was after the Inter-American Development Bank threatened to withdraw from involvement in Haags Bosch in June that same year, over lack of compliance which was resulting in negative impacts on the environment and nearby communities.

Haags Bosch is still not all it was expected to be, though without it, Georgetown and a lot of the nearby coastland would be in dire straits. Managing Director of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Dr Vincent Adams said as much in a recent interview with this newspaper. “…Waste is being disposed in a very unsanitary manner. It exposes a risk to vulnerable areas, such as water sheds, and that is happening all over the country. So, like I said, the EPA is working with the Ministry of Communities right now to identify proper sites across the country, so that we can design and build state-of-the-art landfills.”

Furthermore, there is a dearth of experience in this country in dealing with hazardous waste. As far as proper disposal is concerned, medical hazardous waste, such as needles, syringes, scalpels, knives, broken glass, unused bulk human blood and blood products – generated by hospitals, clinics and health centres – is possibly the only type that is being dealt with in a reasonably safe manner. And that is only a probability, not a certainty.

Household hazardous waste is, and dangerously so, being managed as municipal solid waste. There is no programme, in any community in the country, which educates citizens on what is household hazardous waste and the fact that it needs to be separated and properly disposed of. Therefore, for example, when citizens undertake household projects for Christmas — as many do every year — like re-staining and re-varnishing furniture and floors, or repainting kitchens and other rooms, the cans that held those products and their residue end up in landfills. While regular single-use batteries can be disposed of with household trash, ideally, they should be recycled. Rechargeable, lead-acid and button cell batteries are hazardous and should definitely not end up in landfills, nor should obsolete computers, cell phones and certain electronic toys. But again, no awareness programmes. Hence leachate, toxins and greenhouse gases bedevil our landfills. 

Then there are other types of hazardous waste like used mineral and motor oils, used darkroom chemicals, empty insecticide/pesticide cans among others that are dumped directly into drains, poured into the earth or also end up in our country’s landfills. All of this points to a ton of work that needs to be done and is beyond the current capacity of the EPA. It is appalling then that not only do we not see the government falling over itself to give the EPA the support it so desperately needs, which it should most definitely be doing, but this same almost bare bones agency is also expected to monitor big guns like those in the oil and gas industry. This would be hilarious, if it were not so serious. It is not as if we don’t have the Omai Gold Mines tailings dam collapse as a permanent example.

In his recent interview with this newspaper, Dr Adams said, in relation to the oil and gas sector, that, “…while we believe that the companies will do the right thing as it pertains waste management, we have our part to do and it is why we too are ramping up preparations.” There is not an ounce of naivety in Dr Adams’s statement, but perhaps some amount of warning. Often when faced with doing the right thing at a cost of millions of dollars and doing the cheaper thing which comes with some amount of risk, companies choose the latter. They are, after all, mostly concerned with making money. 

Guyana, therefore, has to do everything in its power to protect itself. One of the things that can be done almost immediately is creating public awareness of the dangers of hazardous waste. Building the capacity of the EPA is critical; it needs expert human resources, the capability for monitoring and evaluation, including technical knowledge and equipment. Government also needs to look at strong legislation and regulatory frameworks specifically geared towards dealing with hazardous waste. Ideally, all of this should be completed before first oil. Spending oil revenue on cleanups or in court does not seem like a good use of it.