Government is exploring new collection sites across Grand Cayman as part of its strategy to tackle the problem of what to do with the island’s waste.
Following the recent collapse of the ReGen project, Health and Environment Minister Katherine Ebanks-Wilks unveiled a 10-year plan in Finance Committee that included increasing recycling across island and also building processing facilities in other sites.
She pointed out that time is running out before the landfill site at George Town – known locally as Mount Trashmore – is declared full.
“For decades, we’ve known that time and capacity are against us,” said Ebanks-Wilks. “If we don’t implement an interim plan, we have approximately five-to-seven years before reaching capacity at the George Town landfill with limited contingencies for emergencies.”
More waste than expected
Last year, 124,125 tons of waste were sent to the landfill, far exceeding projections made 10 years ago that estimated a worst-case scenario of 80,000 tons a year. Rapid population growth is one of the reasons for the increase, which means a permanent solution is needed urgently.
Data from the Department of Environmental Health shows that 60% of landfill waste comes from commercial waste, 17% from vegetation and 12% from household waste.
Noting that other island nations, such as Bermuda and Barbados, divert large proportions of its waste away from landfill via recycling or a waste-to-energy facility, Ebanks-Wilks said that increasing recycling on the island was a priority, but that there needed to be other solutions in the meantime.
Asked by Leader of the Opposition Joey Hew to clarify what those solutions are, Ebanks-Wilks said that government plans to create new tipping locations away from the current landfill site.
“We will be creating new sites,” she told assembled MPs. “We are still exploring the Crown-owned properties. As we all know, the facilities that are at the landfill have already benefited from an EIA [environmental impact assessment], so we’re hoping that we can utilise the space that is there, [so] that is one of the options, and then, of course, we have the ability to look at other Crown-owned properties.”
Green waste depots
The initial plan is for green waste to be located elsewhere, with Ebanks-Wilks citing the example during Tropical Storm Grace when residents dropped their green waste off at separate depots in each district.
Asked by Hew about where household waste would be collected, Ebanks-Wilks said “garbage will continue to go to the landfill site until we determine the new location for whatever the solution will be, once we’ve conducted the three-stage business case”.
Reducing the amount of waste heading to the landfill would, she said, buy time to deliver on the proposed national solid waste plan and build a new solid waste facility.
She said that household, recyclable and green waste would be prioritised and new processing facilities would be built to deal with those, with locations to be decided.
Ebanks-Wilks said that while recycling was a major part of the solution, “recycling on its own won’t solve everything. That is why I am proposing this joined-up, cohesive plan prioritising the construction of processing facilities that will have the most impact on waste reduction.”
Around $9 million has been allocated to the George Town landfill project in the budget, with just under $1 million for the maintenance of the existing landfill site and just over $8 million for implementing the national solid waste management plan and related programmes.
This includes replacing the medical waste incinerator which is now 20 years old and doesn’t meet any modern environmental or operational standards and a landfill compactor for Cayman Brac.
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Activity at the existing recycling locations is minimal, I go to the Kirk site twice a week, and rarely seen other recyclers. The ideal solution is to follow the European system and have each householder provided with different coloured bins for different types of waste and have them collected on different days.