…Gov’t, EPA sites for regional, municipal landfills

By Tamica Garnett
WITH only one engineered landfill and a number of countrywide controlled dumpsites, wholly insufficient to handle Guyana’s growing waste management issue, the Ministry of Communities (MoC) Sanitation Unit and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) are collaborating towards the creation of a number of regional and municipal landfills across the country.

The team is currently embarking on a number of assessments of existing dumpsites and proposed landfill sites in each administrative region across Guyana, to create a countrywide sustainable waste management system.

“The aim is either regularizing the dumpsites to landfill, or providing closure of sites that don’t fit the criteria for a landfill or even a dumpsite. We’ve already completed Regions 1, 2, 5, 6 and part of Region 4. [This] week we’re heading to Regions 8 and 9, and after that heading with Regions 7 and Region 10. We also have the illegal sites in Region 4 that have not been checked out as yet,” explained Lloyd Stanton, Site Manager of Haags Bosch, Guyana’s only engineered landfill, which is located in the Demerara-Mahaica Region.
“Basically the idea is to achieve sustainable waste management in every region in the country. Another objective is to create disposal hubs, where, instead of putting dumpsite in every village, we use a 10 miles radius, for ease of access to everybody within that 10 miles radius, with one or two in each region, all of that is going to be recommendations coming out of this team that’s doing the assessment. Coming out of this assessment one document will be prepared and we’re going to look at the regions in details and identify the locations.”

When completed the document will be used to set out a Terms of Reference (TOR) for the procurement of a consultant to carry out a further Environment Impact Assessment (EIA), which the MoC hopes to get done next year. That document will guide the creation of the regional landfills.

Chairman of the MoC/EPA Committee is Gordon Gilkes, who is also head of the MoC Sanitation Unit. He explained that, in as much as Guyana needs a solution to its solid waste issue, a lot of research has to go into it. “The current assessment that we’re doing now is a physical assessment of the location. The closest receptors, waterways, housing and schools and so on. The EIA now will cover all of that and more. The EIA will look at biological receptors, will look at the effects on air pollution and remedial actions to lessen effects. The EIA would look at more extensive system of the landfill and examine all the issues and provide mitigation efforts to mitigate potential issues,” he explained.

The MoC hopes to pattern the landfills using Haags Bosch as the model to follow.
In Guyana, waste collection is supposed to be handled by the individual local democratic organs (LDOs)– Neighbourhood democratic Councils, and municipalities – but many struggle because of a lack of resources to collect, and put systems in place for disposal. The MoC is aiming to design systems that could eventually be handed over to the LDOs.

“NDCs and municipalities, their function is mainly for the collection and disposal of waste. But because they don’t have the capacity the Ministry provides technical oversight to them and equip them with the relevant resources,” explained Satrohan Nauth, a Senior Engineer at the MoC Sanitation Unit.

“Other than our main landfill at Haags Bosch, the ministry stepped in and we’ve upgraded a number of dumpsites to controlled dumpsites sites. These don’t have all the features of Haags Bosch but we’ve fenced them, and we cover place and compact so the waste doesn’t just dump in a haphazard manner.”

The MoC has controlled dumpsites at Lusignan in Region Four; Byderabo in Bartica; Rose Hall; Esplanade in New Amsterdam, and Bon Success in Lethem. That leaves a number of Regions with little options, which currently see many residents burning their garbage or creating smaller unregulated dumpsites.
Aside from the regional landfills, a number of municipal sanitary landfills are also in the works. Designs have already been done, and are expected to be presented to the MoC shortly, for sanitary landfills in Bartica, Linden, Madhia and Lethem.
$178.6M budgeted

In the 2019 budget, the Ministry of Communities set aside some $178.620 million for the Solid Waste Disposal Programme. For the municipalities, Gilkes explained that further waste composition studies were also being carried out which would guide on the size of these landfills.

“We would need to know what waste would be coming to the landfill, what type of waste and the amount. Based on that we would determine what size of landfill we would need, so we would know what acreage we would need,” he noted.
Landfilling is one of a number of options available to deal with solid waste management issues. Stanton explained that in Guyana, it is the most affordable option. Prevention being better than cure, the ultimate aim is to reduce the amount of waste being disposed of in the first place.

“Landfilling is at the bottom of the waste hierarchy. It is the go-to method in Guyana because of the finances, usually all the other methods like recycling or reduction have high startup costs. So even though [landfilling] costs a lot it is the cheapest method of handling waste right now available to us. But not necessarily the best. The hierarchy is to reduce, reuse, recycle, recovery and then landfill,” notes Stanton.
“The best option is to reduce, if you can’t reduce you reuse as much as possible, if you can’t reuse you try to recycle, if you can’t recycle, if you can’t do recycling when it goes to the landfill you try recovery, if none of the above is possible then you go to landfill. Right now that’s the best option available to us, but we’re trying to go further up the hierarchy. If we can reach to the reduction stage it would be good.”

The World Bank estimates that globally annual waste generation is expected to increase by 70 percent, to 3.40 billion tonnes in 2050. Guyana has seen its fair share of increases over the years. Haags Bosch was initially designed estimating an inflow of 250 tonnes a day, it is currently accepting an average of 400 tonnes per day. With the oil and gas industry coming on stream soon this is expected to increase, however not by much. The MoC/EPA team recently met with representatives from Exxon.

“The waste that they dispose at the site presently is about 1.5% of the total waste we receive at the site. They said when they start it will double. So it will only be about three percent of waste at the site,” Gilkes noted. Outside of the creation of landfills, options for the disposal of garbage include waste to energy and recycling plants. The Sanitation Unit is currently collaborating with the University to generate interest in the creation of ideas that put forth options to deal with the issue.

“We’re also partnering with University of Guyana for sanitation research projects. We’re giving them a grant of $3 million to promote students to do studies in sanitation, on our programme, as their final year projects,” Nauth shared.