Putting waste in its place

Apr 23, 2017 AFC Column, Features / Columnists

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Every year on 18 April, since 1983, the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) celebrates the International Day for Monuments and Sites.
In Guyana we have some national monuments, and many community markers and sites that hold strong nostalgic significance for the people living in and around those communities. While Peru has Machu Picchu, a preserved piece of its extremely old Mayan civilization, Guyana has the vastness of our rainforests that do go as far back in time. Explorers have been marveling at the verdant wonders of Guyana’s greenery for Centuries.
As we have been doing since 2015, we continue to encourage communities and residents to integrate their cultural heritage into their lives and into community activities. We encourage you to spread awareness of the differences in your communities then mold those differences into one workable whole. Your main objective is to preserve your cultures and ways of life, integrate it with other cultures around you to make one properly diversified community that brings back the togetherness, trust and confidence in your neighbourhood and the assurance that no one goes without help … just like in the ‘old days’.
There are many, many benefits to preserving your monuments and everything else that marks your town and community as what it is – even the old building that used to be the community’s recreation hall in bygone days. Why not preserve it for history’s sake, for information, to teach your children and grandchildren about your history; and fight to get back the happiness and comfort that you used to experience as a child.
This is as good a time as any to remind you about the significance of one of Guyana’s oldest iconic structures that even today stands as our calling card to the world. The Stabroek Market is a tribute to our Victorian era architecture, a colossal visage of colonial history. It was built in 1842, but over the last two decades, the value of that famous calling card was tarnished by images posted to the internet showing piles of infested waste, sludge and decay. This Guyanese monument was allowed to lose its significance to this nation.
Those pictures that made their way around the world served to sear the nation’s landscape and epitomize the decadence of our Capital City that used to be known as ‘the Garden City’, and the authorities’ response to it. Our world image had fallen flat and the then ‘administration’ chose to replace it with ‘Guyana, the South American narcotics transit point”.
When the APNU+AFC Coalition took the reins of government in May 2015, we immediately set about restoring the city drain by clogged trench; public building by road; and market by market to bring this capital city back to at least a semblance of its former shining glory.
The new Government plugged $300M into the Georgetown Restoration Programme conducted through City Hall, while the Ministries of Communities and Public Infrastructure and our determined citizens collaborated with the private sector towards a common end. The Year of our Renaissance would sweep across the Guyana from coast to hinterland.
This now serves as the precursor to our government’s draft Solid Waste Management Strategy. It’s aptly titled “Putting Waste In Its Place: A National Integrated Solid Waste Management Strategy for the Cooperative Republic of Guyana 2017 – 2030”.
The viaduct for its implementation is the Ministry of Communities through its mission to produce “Informed communities participating in a nationwide, integrated and financially self-sustaining waste management and resource recovery system; that preserves health and the environment; realizes maximum value from resources; and minimizes long-term households, industry, and government costs.” In short, to repeat an old proverb, “A stitch in time saves nine”.
The core goal of the Ministry is “Less Waste Generated”. The strategy recognizes that avoiding or minimizing the generation of waste ultimately means that there will be less materials, less landfill space to manage; the costs associated with transporting, sorting, and recycling waste would be reduced; less waste would go to dump sites; and a few cottage industries could materialize such as:
· Actual sorting, especially to remove metal-based waste that could be exported to overseas-based companies
· Development of another section of the craft industry that utilizes waste like coconut shells, vehicle tires, tin cans, cut/trimmed tree branches and trunks to make decorative items for yards, houses and even cemeteries.
Waste reduction is one of the most efficient and least expensive waste management strategies, but it is also one of the most difficult to effect because the measures may require import restrictions and levies. Anywhere in the world these are politically unpopular. In Guyana we have to do something that makes sense, something that will benefit people, like encouraging them to repurpose and reuse broken household items, or generally turn trash into treasure. The new term for this is Upcycling.
It is accepted that waste disposal to landfills will continue to be an integral component of Guyana’s waste management system at least in the near future and we have factored that into the blueprint for better waste infrastructure. We have our own past experiences to draw on.
The new infrastructure involves waste disposal systems that are compatible with land-use, that co-ordinate with regional needs for land space and usage, that maintain sanitary environments.
We intend to phase out the region-by-region approach to waste management in favour of a centralized approach. This would optimize waste collection routes and consolidate waste disposal sites among other things. The objective is less cost and better efficiency of a software-driven initiative.
As we reflect on International Day of Monuments and Sites 2017 let our Stabroek Market serve as a reminder of how far we have come from a decadent, ugly past to a cleaner, healthier environment.

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