CHANGING cultural behaviour is a daunting task and for that alone, one has to admire our public servants, from the President down, for demonstrating that putting trash in its place is the solution to pollution.

The iconic photo of President Irfaan Ali raking trash while a happy girl with gloves stands at his side eager to take over, tells us that littering affects everyone now and in the years to come.
For years, the PPP has been actively engaged in making Guyana beautiful and clean. “Guyana Shines” was launched on Earth Day 2012, during the Presidency of Donald Ramotar. In partnership with Youths of Guyana, the initiative focused on weekly neighbourhood clean-up activities, small-scale compost projects and the introduction of recycling bins in specific communities.

“Pick It Up Guyana” was launched by the PPP’s Minister of Natural Resources in 2012; it was a two-year campaign to clean up drains and creeks and install public awareness sign boards. In 2014, again under a PPP government, GY$1 billion was budgeted for a national clean-up campaign dubbed “Billion-Dollar Clean-Up Campaign.” It included desilting drains and canals, and cleaning parapets, alleyways and other surrounding areas.
In 2014, the PPP submitted a draft Solid Waste Management Bill which sought to establish licensing and permits for waste management and even prescribed penalties for littering, illegal dumping and burning of garbage.

This led to the “Team Up To Clean Up Clean and Green Guyana” campaign, also in 2014, which had the undiluted support of the PPP government.
Beginning with the creation of the EPA in 1996, there has been a slew of other important legislation and policies by the PPP that adequately demonstrates it is the only party that is determined to make Guyana greener, healthier and more pleasing to the eyes – a right enshrined in the country’s Constitution.

Meanwhile, the opposition and their allies in M&CC are determined to play politics with trash. It is a shame that they’re not being called out for it by the citizens of Region Four.
A study that was conducted in 2010 forecasted that in 14 years a person in Region Four would be generating 1.35kg of solid waste per day, up from 0.73kg. An assessment of the catchment areas for 405,000 residents showed that approximately 575 tonnes of garbage would be produced every day and that 50 percent of it would be vegetable and putrescible waste.
That’s why it is difficult to fathom why Mayor Alfred Mentore and his Councillors rejected an offer by a Canadian NGO to donate a shredder to the city and help set up a modern municipal compost programme. Recycle Organics conducted an environmental assessment that cost M&CC nothing, but when it came time for the Mayor and Councillors to meet with them in person, they couldn’t find the time. Recycle Organics donated a biodigester to the University of Guyana and left the country.

I last visited Delhi in 2011 and their garbage crisis was, well, it would make Georgetown at its worst, look and smell like a garden. Delhi was producing 9,000 tonnes of municipal waste per day which contaminated groundwater and caused intense air pollution. Officials in Delhi got serious and turned things around.

Delhi’s municipality collaborated with the company IL&FS to reopen a composting plant to process the city’s waste and produce compost and resource-driven fuel. In other words, fuel that is produced by “shredding” and dehydrating solid waste.

As of 2015 the plant was handling 200 tonnes of waste per day and with upgrades was handling over 500 tonnes per day by 2016. Delhi is a city of nearly 32 million people and while composting helps reduce waste, it does not eliminate trash. That remains an odious challenge for the residents of Delhi.

Composting requires effort to separate or sort waste at the point of origin so that it is less labour intensive to sort it out downstream. Vegetable and putrescible waste has to also be turned often to ensure it gets an appropriate supply of oxygen to decay quickly.

Delhi officials teamed up with Mother Dairy to sell the compost to farmers. Compost manure is rich in nutrients and it helps plants retain water and reduces the need for pesticides and fertilisers.

The fuel generated from Delhi’s compost programme was then sold to cement manufacturing plants which in turn drastically reduced their need to burn coal. For every 250,000 tonnes of waste processed at the plant, it led to the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to removing one million cars from the streets of Delhi for 10 days.

According to Cities 100, an initiative that provides stakeholders with solutions for climate action in cities, the economic benefits of composting mean that less land is required for landfills. It said that the overall environmental impact of this single initiative in Delhi was estimated to have caused an emissions reduction of 500,000 tons of CO2 annually.

Initiatives like these have a trickle-down effect; they light the torch for further research and innovation. I read of a woman in India who invented a neat little portable composter that looks like a dustbin which turns kitchen waste into manure in just seven days.

DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Guyana National Newspapers Limited.