St. Maarten Private Eye

I am responding to an anonymous, I have no idea why anyone would want to stay anonymous with this issue as the landfill or dump depot affect us all.
Health wise, environmental wise, litter wise, eyesore.
I will respond to the incenerator in St.Barths as I know it, I am not totally in the loop with all info, but here is what I have:
The incenerator in St.Barths was paid for by the European Union, it is a small incenerator.
At the time, I understood that the St.Barths government did ask St.Maarten if they would be interested in exporting their trash to St.Barths, there was no response (unconfirmed)
I am talking about many years ago, this incerator is not new to St.Barths.
It has been said to me that the incenerator in St.Barths is an old unit, and if you are reffering to bringing the same type of unit here, I would say it would not work.
If you were present at the ECDOC presentation last wednesday, you would understand why.
The incenerator in St.Barths is located at the end of the Gustavia, not a good location today I think.
Maybe when it was set up, Gustavia was not so built up.
I noticed also a cement plant of sorts nearby as well, Gustavia has gone through a built up period as well, seems that Mayor Magras of St.Barths owns the cement plant.
Please keep in mind that an incenerator does not accept all the trash that you might think it does.
You cannot throw car tyres, green waste, many types of plastics in an incenerator.
Reason why St.Barths has implemented ridding the island of plastic shopping bags, shoppers have to take their own shopping basket or enviro bags to the grocery stores.
Mr. Chouraki stated this in his presentation, he said inceneration does not burn many plastics, but also recylcling some plastics is difficult.
So even with a recycling plant, the supermarkets should get rid of the plastic bags, or offer enviro friendly alternatives.
I urge you to find the thursday edition of the French Newspaper Le Pelican and read for yourself a very good piece of journalism written about our landfill, about recycling and what Jean Luc Hamlet has to say.

Jadira Veen