Over the next three weeks, the Georgetown Mayor and City Council (M&CC) will be engaging 26 primary schools across the municipality through a new project to teach children how to compost in a bid to better manage waste.
Solid Waste Director Walter Narine engaging the pupils of Smith’s Memorial Primary
On Wednesday, Guyana Times visited the Smith’s Memorial Primary School, which was one of the first institutions to benefit from this initiative. Solid Waste Director, Walter Narine, who engaged the pupils on composting told this publication that one of the factors which triggered the project is the fact that 50 per cent of waste that ends up at the landfill is organic.
He explained that composting can be defined as the breakdown of organic waste into fertiliser, which can be used to stimulate healthy growth of plants. He also hinted to the importance of composting as he pointed out that it helps to reduce greenhouse gases produced by humans.
Greenhouse gases are harmful to the protective layer of the earth, called the ozone layer. They are produced from vehicle exhausts among others.
Narine told <<<<Guyana Times>>>> that the said organic waste which ends up in the landfill sites tend to decompose overtime after being buried which then produces methane gas and leachate which are harmful and can pollute the water that we drink among other things.
In this regard, he said the project is geared towards educating the children who will then hopefully spread the message to their parents and friends to compost.
“Over the next year I anticipate that there will be a change or a reduction of organic waste in the landfill,” he shared.
On Wednesday, the Communities Ministry handed over two bins to each of the three schools visited. One will be used to store organic waste such as fruit skins and even left over rice along with others. The other bin will store garbage that is useless to be thrown away.
Narine said the intent is to have the children use the organic waste in kitchen gardens at the schools which can help them to even become entrepreneurs one day. “Not only will they learn the technique of composting but entrepreneurship because the cash crops that they produce at school, they can sell it to benefit their school so they will learn business,” he reasoned.
The next move according to him is to get into communities and teach persons how to compost their waste as it will in turn also cut the collection costs.
He noted, “It will be beneficial to the municipality because it will reduce the frequency of collection because you don’t want your waste to be collected once a week (because) it starts to give off odor, it attracts rodents, dogs and stuff like that but if you take the organic component out of that waste we can collect twice a week and save costs because that would only be plastic and paper”.
The Solid Waste Director informed that he had been trying to initiate this project for about three years now and is excited to finally see it kick off.
The initiative is a collaborative effort between the M&CC along with the Ministries of Communities and Education.
Head Teacher of the school, Iyodele Hamilton, also said she was happy that the kids are being taught to manage their refuse. She said, “It’s a very good initiative because it’s going to help us with waste management at our school. Indeed we have a problem with waste. While this initiative may not be well-known to persons, its one way of disposal but children are now going to be familiar with this new initiative”.
Hamilton added that the school is excited about starting their kitchen garden. In fact, an area for the farming has already been identified.
The Georgetown municipality has been grappling over the years to properly manage waste.
Landfill
The Communities Ministry recently expended some $253 million to upgrade the Haags Bosch landfill site at Eccles, East Bank Demerara, and legislation is soon to be enacted to benefit its commercial stakeholders.
Last October, Site Supervisor for the Communities Ministry, Lloyd Stanton explained that the solid waste management strategy is currently at the last stages of being finalised. This will lead to the process of legislation being enacted, after which the Haags Bosch landfill site would be ready to welcome commercial stakeholders.
The contract, which was awarded in April 2018, initiated from steps to rehabilitate the dumpsite after a fire had erupted there back in 2015. The landfill was commissioned in 2011 to replace a similar setup at Mandela, Georgetown, which used to pollute areas of the city that are contiguous to the dumpsite. The Haags Bosch landfill site has since served as the main disposal site for solid waste.
The new Bartica landfill at 14 Miles in Region Seven (Cuyuni-Mazaruni) should also be operational by next year, providing waste management services on a larger scale than the Byderabo site.
This is according to Bartica Mayor Gifford Marshall. The Communities Ministry had provided funds back in 2017 for a landfill site to be developed at Bartica. An area at 14 Miles was selected and the Mayor is certain that it will be completed by 2020. For now, there is a site which is operated by private contractors and the Council is monitoring the situation so that activities are carried out in an environmentally friendly manner.
At present, there is no facility to dispose liquid waste, which will add one more function to the new 14 Miles landfill operation once completed.
