Tyre shredding begins at dump
Premier Alden McLaughlin at the George Town landfill
(CNS): The premier said government had worked “tirelessly” to get the mountain of used tyres at the George Town dump recycled. Speaking at an event Tuesday marking the official start of a new shredding project, he said it would take the contractors almost a year to clear the massive pile of tyres sitting at the dump and turn them into aggregate. But with a specialist machine now installed, once the tyres are shredded, the area will become the home of the long-awaited composting site, as government crawls towards its waste-management solution.
It is believed that more thanat least half a million tyres have accumulated at the dump over the last decade or more, but Premier Alden McLaughlin said there could be many more than that, as no one has been able to count them.
Local contractors Island Waste Carriers, an affiliate of Island Recycling, in partnership with overseas experts Guernsey Recycling Group, won the contract last year and they have already begun supplying local developer Davenport, which is using the shredded tyre-derived aggregate (TDA) in building construction and landscaping.
The goal is to clear the area within a year while recycling the tyres and generating local jobs for the initiative. Once Island Waste completes the estimated year-long contract, the government or whoever ends up managing the landfill in future will take over the shredding of tyres as they come to the landfill. The Department of Environmental Health, which has a smaller shredder, will also assume the job of finding developers willing to use the aggregate.
Officials said that the product could also be used at the landfill for cover material, drainage works, erosion control and the access road base, which would line up with government’s long-term aim of recycling and reusing most of the waste generated on island to cut what goes into the dump by 90%.
“This is a significant milestone in my government’s determination to implement a long-term waste management system that will serve the needs of the Cayman Islands for generations to come,” said McLaughlin, who is responsible for environmental health. “The ever-increasing pile of tyres has been an enormous problem for many years.”
He described the official start of the project as a major moment in the commitment to “resolving the landfill issue that has challenged many different administrations in the past”.
The tyre-shredding machine, which was shipped from Missouri, processes whole tyres at a rate of around one every four or five seconds and reduces them to approximately two-inch rubber chips.
Island Recycling Managing Director Jason Brown said his company was “taking a waste product, which has been disposed of at the landfill” and turning it into a material that could be put to use in building developments. “It’s a fine example of the circular waste-economy in motion, turning waste into resources for our homeland,” he added.
Brown told CNS that there were other developers interested in the aggregate and that the Ironwood developers may still take some of the tyres for the proposed golf course, but both government officials and the contractor played down the Ironwood participation.
Doubt continues to plague the now long-touted golf resort project. Although planning permission was acquired last year just for the proposed Arnold Palmer golf course, named for the famous golfer who died last year. Since then, the developers, who had said they wanted to use the TAD, have been sued for relatively small debts in relation to the legal advice on the project and almost nothing has happened at the proposed site.
But with plenty of other developers on island, Brown said he was confident that they could move all of the aggregate that the tyre shredder could generate from the current giant tyre pile over the coming year.
DEH Director Roydell Carter noted his and his team’s relief that the elimination of the tyre pile was now in sight, as it had been the cause of one of the dump’s worst ever fires. “This is a great step forward in our efforts to clean up the landfill and implement the new waste-management system,” he added.
The implementation of government’s proposed Integrated Solid Waste Management System (ISWMS), which will have recycling, composting and a waste-to-energy concept at the heart of its operations, has been long and drawn out, though there have been significant improvements at the dump, especially in terms of the management.
The landfill is more organised, there is considerably more recycling, and some $1.5 million has been invested in equipment, enabling Mount Trashmore, as the giant pile of rubbish is often labeled, to be properly covered and managed, reducing the once frequent fires.
While things have improved at the dump, there is still a long way to go but the procurement process for the ISWMS is moving forward, following a pre-qualification process last autumn to shortlist companies that could construct and operate the new waste management system for a 25-year period, officials said.
Selected bidders submitted initial outline proposals for ISWMS in early February, and a preferred bidder is expected to be announced by the end of April 2017, officials said Tuesday.
Category: Environmental Health, Health
Stop the blame game. The dump is here and here to stay can we all agree to that? Now, we need to look at the process to recycle, compost, formulate, logistics,waste to energy and a marketable after market for the recycled material. After market is not just for profit but for the ego system. We need to look at vitrification technology. The contamination and toxification of the North Sound will continue and get worst exponential as the saturation and contamination to the water table continues. Sealing the bottom of the dump is paramount, that is where we need to start with that understanding to solving this problem.
I’ve been shredding waves along SMB for years on my upcycled tyre inner tube. Does that count for anything?
Thank you PPM for making some (albeit little) progress in the right direction. This has been a long time coming but at least we are now moving toward a solution to the fires belching that awful black smoke that we have seen at the landfill in the past.
Just in time fuh May…
beats mckeewa’s usual paving of all the roads in West Bay in time for may.
Reducing the waste going into the dump by 90% is sheer fantasy, but yet again it seems Govt has been suckered in by the claims of overseas super salesmen who will say anything to sell their products.
As opposed to the local bandits who rip us off every day at the supermarkets and the gas pump? And in most developed countries, recycling has had a major effect. Only the great and educated of Cayman would think otherwise.
Maybe Alexander Pope was on to something when he wrote “Fools rush in where angels fear to tread”?
The vain attempt to boot the tyre to the finish line said it all.
Another fantastic achievement. I have visited the landfill and the changes made have been outstanding. Great work everyone.
Do not be deterred by the negative bloggers
Is it still growing higher and higher every day? Is it still leaching toxic waste into our water table and North Sound?
Speaks volumes about the quality of self governance of these tiny islands. I moved here in 1994 and the “teams” of MLAs as we had then were always promising to deal with the waste management issues – 23 years later we have Alden “working tirelessly” to reduce the tyre population! Countless people over the years have been voicing their concerns about the toxins leaching into North Sound every day and the damage to the ecosystem, What will it take for any government to bring this to the front of the agenda instead of pretending that it will go away on it’s own – or is there still the assumption that due to the dump’s proximity to Cayman New Town, that DartCo will fix it? Third world mentality in a first world wrapper,
Yes, count me in (from 1979), but your assumption is off. Dart (“DartCo”) is a nonentity in this matter.
Soongone…says a lot about the reality of the silliness you call First World and Third World. Namely, things were so bad in your First World that you escaped to this terrible Third World where things are so bad that you have only been able to stay for 23yrs. My guess is that in another 23yrs you will still be here enjoying yourself while trying to figure out just how terrible it is.
4.01 writing comments at stupid times of the morning is never going to end well. Perhaps if you got out of your cave and took one of those flying tubes we call “an airplane” to another country or two (yes there are places other than Cayman), removed your own blinkers and actually saw what was happening you wouldn’t be up so early in the morning worrying what rubbish to write today.
Alden should apply for a job while he is there. He might need it come May!
He looks tyred.
Your jokes are becoming tiresome.
Your tyres are jokesome!
While we are spending money on environmental impact studies, maybe we should have someone confirm the impact of burying this new “product” as part of the construction of the golf course.
Wonder where all the tyre chips are going now the golf course project is going belly up
Obviously a poor reader. Maybe you should suggest that they sell it to a developer to be used in aggregate.
Or a play pit for the CS behind GOAB
I cringe when I hear ‘Government’ and ‘Tirelessly’ in the same sentence. Anyone who has visited any civil service department knows that this simply is not true.
Saying all the things Cayman people want to hear now that election is right around the corner!!
If we pay a disposal tax per tyre, why is there now and always has been a massive pile up?? Same with older cars
While I commend the administration for their hard work, it’s a shame they had to make the dump political…again.
Right before parliament is dissolved they make this announcement. No one is being fooled…
“We have been working tirelessly…..”, “We began working to improve the landfill since the start of term..” Do they get red faced saying such self-conratulatory speaches?
Typical Alden….trying to fool the people into believing that he actually did something with the dump – NOT. Shredding types while the dump is leaking toxic waste into the North Sound is like putting lipstick on a pig!