Trinidad toughens laws against polluters

Jun 03, 2022 News

– passes law instructing companies to pay for hazardous waste generation

Kaieteur News – Trinidad and Tobago on Tuesday operationalized a Waste Management Fee that will pave the way for businesses that generate large sums of waste, as well as hazardous substances, to make payments to the State for same.

Minister of Planning, Penelope Beckles

The Minister of Planning, Penelope Beckles told delegates at the twin island’s Energy Conference that this was one of the steps taken to help the country realise its green goals, while making polluters pay for waste generated as they make millions in profits. The Waste Management Rules aim to establish a legal framework to improve national waste management, including hazardous and non-hazardous waste by requiring generators and handlers of waste to apply for and obtain permits to carry out their waste related activities.
The rules apply to the generation, processing, treatment, packaging, storage, transportation, collection, disposal, recovery, recycling or other activities related to the treatment of waste other than radioactive waste. In addition, the Waste Management Fees will be charged for the application for and renewal of a waste generation permit; annual waste generation; application for and renewal of a waste handling permit; application for the variation of a permit; application to transfer a permit and extracts from the waste management register.
Kaieteur News understands that the regulations are intended to support the control of waste disposal methods while reducing waste pollution in the country. Waste generators under the regulation are defined as permit holders that produce hazardous waste or waste above the regulated quantity. Among the requirements, generators will be obligated to implement measures to reduce the generation of waste, exercise environmentally sound management of waste and segregate hazardous waste from non-hazardous waste.
The new regulation clearly outlines the various formulae that can be used to determine what amount is owed to the state. For instance, the annual waste generation fee can be calculated by multiplying the compliance monitoring cost by the sum of factors for hazardous wastes generated in a permit year and the sum of factors for non-hazardous wastes generated in a permit year. The charges will vary according to the size of the company.

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