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Solid Waste among critical issues ministers will discuss at CWWA 2017

Sep 24, 2017 News

Regional ministers will review a solid waste management plan when the first high-level forum on waste management is held during Caribbean Water and Wastewater Association (CWWA) 26th Conference and Exhibition from October 16 in Georgetown, Guyana.

The conference is expected to attract more than 400 participants and will see special efforts to start the conversation on solid waste, its management and its effect on the environment.

CWWA Executive Director, Patricia Aquing, says that solid waste management has not been able to reach the level of cohesion which the water sector in the Caribbean has.

She opined, “We are at the point where we are beginning to work through our partners, to elevate the discussions on issues of policy and technical matters to the levels within the waste management sector.”

That regional plan for waste management will be presented to the UN Environment Assembly in Nairobi in December.

“There is an opportunity to present the strategic plan to a wider audience, we have development partners who see the Caribbean as strategic and they want to support us in our development” says Aquing.

She added, “We can then say to them we have something that has truly come through a consultative process in the Caribbean.”

In Guyana, consultations began in an effort to work towards a National Integrated Solid Waste Management Strategy (2017-2030).

This proposed strategy will be designed to address the way forward for the management of waste in the South American country.

Gordon Gilkes, Head of the Sanitation Management Unit, Ministry of Communities asserted that the strategy will make efforts to create an integrated approach to address the country’s solid waste management crisis.

The strategy also aims to reduce and improve the management of solid waste in the growing country, which has seen the designation of new townships across its landscape in the past 18 months. Gilkes likened the strategy to a call for action.

He said, “This strategy provides a road map for the institutional support, regulatory framework, appropriate technologies community awareness and involvement, financing, management indicators that will aid in the integration of a sustainable waste management system towards a circular economy.”

Even as Guyana pursues this strategy, is it without adequate and updated solid waste management laws? There are some regulations under the Environmental Protection Agency Act and Municipal and District Council Act which address the issue. However, evidence suggests that waste management in Guyana calls for a broader legislation. A Solid Waste Management Bill which was tabled in Guyana’s Parliament in 2014 was never debated.

In 2016, a paper titled “IDB Solid Waste Management in the Caribbean: Proceedings from the Solid Waste Conference 2016” was launched after the Inter-American Development Bank’s Solid Waste Management in the Caribbean Conference, of the same year.

One major challenge identified was the lack of legislative harmony to tackle the issue in the region.

In the twin-island republic, Trinidad and Tobago, the Litter Act and Public Health Act along with the National Environmental Policy cite provisions for the management of solid waste. However, South American mainland, Suriname remains without updated solid waste management legislation and plan.

The high-level ministerial forum is expected to attract legislators and professionals in the sector.

“The countries would have an opportunity to see what each other is doing at the first high level forum for waste management that we are having this year in Guyana and that is ground breaking, to talk to each other, see who is doing what, the practices in places and what they can take from each other,” Aquing says.

The 26th CWWA Conference is being held under the theme “Promoting innovation and creativity in water, waste water and waste management”.

 

 

 

 

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