St. Maarten Private Eye

SXM and GW - What can we do? - Waste

Some years ago there was a campaign supported by the SHTA and Govt in which small signs were placed all over the island informing of littering fines, they were in several languages and I recall that one or two example cases were made, but nothing since. Nothing except more and more litter. Clean St. Maarten, the company contracted to clean our roadsides and boardwalk among other places, does an asthetic job, they clean the areas where our tourists go and where you can see from your car, but beyond that view there is an ever growing pile of trash.

Considering that our dump is full, it no longer has the capacity to hold all the garbage scattered around the island even if it was all picked up. Next time you take a trip over the hill, make a stop at Crazy Jack's, walk to the grassy area overlooking Cay Bay and look down. I don't mean at the shacks and power plant, I mean at this.

All along our roadsides, just out of view under the bushes and grass there are hundreds of tons of garbage, in particular glass and plastic bottles, soda and beer cans and thousands of plastic bags.No one cleans it up, it piles up year after year. I've posted a small collection of photos here and there are many more on this site, but all you really have to do is look around you. It is clear St. Maarten has a serious garbage and polution issue.

When next you drive down the Pondfill or through the pond, consider how big and how high it is and imagine, that this all used to be water. Hady wrote a nice article about the death of the Great Salt Pond a while back which is well worth a read if you missed it. Be sure to listen to Roy on his 'garbage' plans.

NOTE: We would very much like to get hold of a copy of this TNO report that Roy keeps quoting. Can anyone out there provide one or tell us where we can get it. - Flipper.

As you look at and consider the amount of garbage and waste that is there, keep in mind that very little that goes in is checked, for decades, oil, grease, paints, chemicals, plastics, heavy metals and toxins have been dumped unregulated. All of these things are degrading, but not it a good way, most are degrading into individual compounds, smaller and smaller, sinking into our ground. That plastic cup that is 10 years old may be brittle and crumble in your hand, but it doesn't crumble into dust, it still a plastic cup. As you notice the clouds of dust that rise off our roads when cars and trucks pass, imagine all the polutants it holds that you often have to breath in. Cancer rates are rising all over the world due to the polluted environments we are increasingly finding ourselves in.

Roy Marlin and the DP have no plan, because tackling the problem is such a big and complex job, it involves drastic measures which would be unpopular, not just in the community but more importantly the DP's business buddies. Well, actually, that's not exactly true, Roy does have his TNO report, but considering his past record with sewage and now water...... hmmm.

Prevention.
The people who manufacture are the ones who can do the most in prevention, by producing products with minimal waste and maximum recycling potential. It can also come from govts which restrict importation or use of certain products. Marine stores in St. Maarten still sell paints that are banned in the EU and US, airconditioners are sold that are banned on the French side. These are examples of prevention that govt can make.

Minimalisation
Minimalisation is the next step down from prevention, again manufaturers have a big role to play, but govts can also have an effect by taxing certain products that are excessively wasteful. If there was a $25 refundable tax on refrigerators, cookers, computer monitors and tv's then these things would have a value when it comes to replacing them, they would not be dumped on the side of the road. Banning non degradable plastic bags would be such a step and easy to carry out.

For you parents, it may be very convenient to buy multi packages of yogurts, cookies and other snack foods for your kids, but the packaging waste and energy used to produce them is often more than tripled as a result. It's your children that are going to be growing up in a polluted world because of your laziness, buy a few tupperware tubs instead and bulk packs. Think about what you purchase.

Reuse
Our grandparents were mostly hoarders, they reused bottles, jars and most anything else that could be reused, today's throw away society is much different. The St. Kitts brewery and another down in St. Lucia (?) used to reuse Heineken bottles, then Heineken changed the manner that they label their bottles and this stopped. Now very few bottles, if any, get reused. Some of you remember the days when you used to buy your sodas in crates of bottles, some islands like St. Kitts still have this, these were the good old days of reusing. Taxes and legistlation could make those days return to a certain extent.

Recycling

Recycling is probably the most effective and prefered manner to deal with waste, but it relies upon an efficient and well managed collection and sorting program, one which the general public must play an active part in. Sorting your trash is not such a big deal, it's a habit that you grow into. Plastics, cans, glass and paper are the three main household waste products, a program to encourage garden farming could take care of much of the organic waste.

Our dump should be set up to seperate and sort, compress and process these products, crushed glass can be used in building, imagine how much we could have buried under the new govt admin building. Plastic, soda cans and paper are also easily recycled or prepared for shippment elsewhere to be recycled, in fact the value of such materials is growing. Scrap metal for example is now in the $250-$300 range per ton and rising.

Import taxes and deposits should be imposed at the harbor. Clearly agreements and cooperation are needed with the French Side, The whole issue needs to be handled jointly, which was apparently the plan. Now it seems there is little or no cooperation.

Oil and batteries, electronic components that contain PCB's and toxic heavy metals should all be sorted and recycled. Cooking oils can be used to power vehicles, for more on that see the What can we do? - Transport section.

Recycling is a habit, that we all have to grow into. It is a money making business, it may one day become viable for us to start digging up the dump to recover much of what we so carelessly throw away today.

Energy Recovery
Energy recovery is the step below recycling and Roy's prefered choice, he has designs to build an incinerator. While incinerators nowadays can be fairly clean, in respect to airborn pollution, they do also produce ash which can be highly toxic and very difficult to dispose of. They also have to be kept running almost constantly to maximise their use and St. Maarten does not produce enough to do this. There are rumors that Roy, who's family is in the garbage business, is thinking of taking garbage from cruise ships and other islands for this incinerator. As mentioned in the Energy Section, there are many other cleaner ways to produce the energy we need.

Disposal
This is what we do now.

You can find much more information on waste by following the links and googling from here and here.

See also - Enviro and Cultural Foundations - Recommendations for politicians

IPCC summary for policymakers - PDF

Please feel free to share your thoughts, ideas and questions on this issue below.

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