Implement solutions for waste management

NEW GARBAGE trucks, while sorely needed, will not solve Jamaica’s long-standing solid waste problem. A snapshot of many streets in Kingston will depict a city choking in garbage, thereby presenting a potential health hazard to residents.

But no one knows this better than Desmond McKenzie, minister of local government and rural development, because he told an audience in Kingston last year, “Even if 1,000 garbage trucks are imported, Jamaicans will have to change their attitude towards littering and solid waster disposal.”

So even though Governor-General Sir Patrick Allen announced in his Throne Speech at the start of the 2023-24 parliamentary year that 50 more trucks are to be delivered this year, the situation regarding the collection and disposal of garbage requires trucks, and real solutions and innovation.

The big question is how to effect this desirable change in attitude of which the minister speaks. From all the available evidence, neither the minister nor the management of the National Solid Waste Management Authority (NSWMA) has any clue about how to develop a comprehensive solid waste management strategy. Yet, there are individuals with the requisite training in waste management whose skills could be put to good use.

What good is there in equipping the enforcement arm of the NSWMA with motorbikes if they are not being actively used to detect litterbugs and monitor illegal dumps? Worse, why review fines when the current ones are not being applied to offenders? There needs to be a robust enforcement system to punish those who litter. One way to compel compliance is to impose fines.

The government itself needs to lead by example, by setting targets for all public buildings and spaces to be clean and devoid of garbage. Waste generated in public buildings should be recycled. In addition, the government should be encouraging entrepreneurs to introduce innovative methods of converting waste to energy, for example, as well as finding sustainable ways of dealing with solid waste. And even though divestment talks have been swirling around the NSWMA for years, inevitably the discussions come around to the availability of garbage trucks. But this, we submit, is not the main problem.

The local government minister has spent a good deal of parliamentary time addressing the importation of the compactor garbage trucks, as if this is the panacea that will solve the waste-management problem in this country. Fifty trucks were acquired at the end of last year, yet the streets are still filthy. Jamaica produces about 1.4 million tonnes of garbage each year, overwhelmingly containing plastics and other biodegradables, and these are buried in landfills. The frequency of fires at the Riverton City landfill sends a sharp signal that the facility is not being properly managed.

Part of the NSWMA’s mandate is to help householders and businesses reduce the amount of garbage they produce. This newspaper has repeatedly cited the inadequacies of the NSWMA, yet it continues to roll on, year after year, doing the same things in the same archaic way and expecting change.

While in the Opposition, Prime Minister Andrew Holness wisely called for the divestment of the country’s waste management services. Now, he has the opportunity to make a monumental change for the good of the country’s environmental health, and we sincerely hope that he will do it, and soon.

The opinions on this page, except for The Editorial, do not necessarily reflect the opinions of The Gleaner.