The GraceKennedy Foundation’s ongoing efforts to reduce plastic waste entering Kingston Harbour have brought attention to the gaps in Jamaica’s solid waste management capacity. While the foundation, in partnership with local and international NGOs, has successfully deployed technology to trap waste at the mouths of gullies, the National Solid Waste Management Authority (NSWMA) still faces challenges in managing garbage in rural and informal communities. A 2020 initiative allocated J$320 million for a community-based clean-up programme, including small vehicles for garbage collection in tight spaces, but there has been little reporting on its progress.

Confronting plastic waste

Jamaica Gleaner/29 Nov 2024

THE GRACEKENNEDY Foundation is apparently preparing for an expansion of its initiative, with a domestic and foreign NGO, to stem the flow of plastic waste into Kingston Harbour.

Already, the foundation and its partners are trapping tens of thousands of kilos of garbage at the mouths of gullies before it washes out to sea. The next idea, later on, would possibly involve to go into the communities, where accessibility by large garbage compactors and removal trucks is difficult or infeasible, and use small vehicles to take garbage to nearby collection points.

That suggestion, whether it proceeds or not, triggers questions about the status of a programme, with similar intent, that was announced more than four years ago by the former finance minister, Nigel Clarke, with full endorsement from this newspaper.

In his budget presentation in 2020, Dr Clarke disclosed that he allocated J$320 million to the government’s National Solid Waste Management Authority (NSWMA) for a major clean-up of the island’s gullies, some of which had developed substantial islands along their course, upon which large trees had sprouted.

But this programme had an important twist: there would be an ongoing community-based element in which residents contracted to the NSWMA would use small vehicles or push trucks or trolleys to traverse tight lanes and gully banks, where many people live, to collect garbage, which would be deposited in centrally-placed skips.

The Cassava Piece community in St Andrew and May Pen, Clarendon, were named as the places where the initiative would be started before being rolled out to other communities.

“... Specially-trained workers will do foot patrol of the town to clear these at specified times throughout the day,” Dr Clarke said at the time. “They will also clear the streets of any loose garbage dropped by pedestrians.”

NO REPORTING

Variations of the same idea have been repeated several times by government and waste management officials, with little to no reporting on performance and outcomes. Indeed, there has been no discernible change in the communities where the scheme was supposed to be launched – if it ever got off the ground.

The Gleaner, on the evidence, doesn’t fear that would be the case with a new Gracekennedy Foundation initiative. Indeed, the foundation’s current programme – in conjunction with the Holland-based non-profit, Ocean Cleanup and its domestic counterpart, Clean Harbours Jamaica – is already reaping significant success, helping to prevent even worse damage to the marine environment, including Jamaica’s mangrove forests. The multimillion-dollar project is mostly funded by the Benioff Foundation at the University of California San Francisco (UCSF), which works in children’s care and ocean/environmental research and support.

Nearly fully enclosed and almost 10 miles in length and over three miles wide, Kingston Harbour is the world’s seventh largest natural harbour. But from an environmental and ecological standpoint, it is on life support.

Apart from discharges from vessels that traverse the harbour, it, for decades, has been a receptacle for effluent from surrounding industrial plants, undertreated sewage from nearby communities, and for run-offs from the hillsides that include residue from pesticides, fertilisers and other chemicals used in agriculture.

More recently, these problems have been compounded by plastic pollution, mostly PET bottles that reach the sea, primarily via a network of 11 gullies and a handful of rivers that drain the plains to the north of the harbour.

Experts suggest that nearly 1,000 tonnes of plastic waste enter the harbour each year, contributing to the between 10 million and 11 million tonnes that enter the world’s oceans annually, with grave damage to the global marine ecosystem.

LACKS THE CAPACITY

In Jamaica’s case, the massive growth in the island’s plastic waste is exacerbated by a solid waste management system that lacks the capacity – and not only in equipment – to handle the volume of garbage generated by households and firms.

The problem is especially in poorer and informal communities where large amounts of garbage are deposited on roadsides, or in drains and gullies. Much of it eventually reaches the sea.

Apart from the health and social risks to communities of having mounds of garbage strewn about, there are other practical consequences also shared by the wider society. Blocked drains and gullies contribute to flooding, which has become a frequent occurrence in Jamaica’s cities and towns, whose already inadequate infrastructure are being increasingly stressed.

In the existing project the partners deploy Ocean Cleanup’s interceptor technology – specially-designed barriers that trap garbage at the mouth of gullies, preventing the waste from going to the ocean. That garbage is then collected for recycling using another bit of Ocean Cleanup’s proprietary technology – a small barge with a conveyor system that efficiently scoops up the waste.

These technologies now operate at five gullies in the Jamaican capital, the first being installed in 2022 at the Rae Town gully in central Kingston. The latest is at the Sandy Gully, the capital’s largest, which was launched in October. The interceptor barrier spans the gully’s entire width of 880 feet.

Since the project’s 2022 pilot, it has trapped over two million tonnes of waste, some of which has gone for recycling as plastics, and some for burning for energy by the Caribbean Cement Company.

Jamaican policymakers don’t have to look too hard to discern practical and applicable lessons from this scheme. Or of the value of doing small things and getting them right.

For feedback: contact the Editorial Department at onlinefeedback@gleanerjm.com.