Dump is ‘urgent priority’ but no policy outlined
(CNS): Following a visit to the George Town landfill, the new minister responsible for Cayman’s ever-growing rubbish pile has said the issue is an “urgent national priority”, but so far, there are no indications on how she plans to address it. Last year, in her capacity as sustainability minister, Kathy Ebanks-Wilks withdrew from the talks with Dart on ReGen, a proposed deal for a new waste-management system, due to escalating costs and other issues. However, what happens next remains an open question.
“Standing at the edge of the landfill today, it is painfully clear that this is not just an environmental problem — it’s an urgent national priority that affects our land, our health and our economy,” Ebanks-Wilks said during the visit last Thursday, according to a release. “The Cayman Islands needs a waste system that works, and I am fully committed to delivering one that is both affordable and built to last.”
The George Town Landfill has been in operation since the 1970s and now spans about 58 acres, according to officials. Cayman generates five times the global average of waste and has a woefully inadequate recycling system, with almost no encouragement for any kind of reduction or reuse of the waste generated.
Each month, around 13,000 cubic yards of waste are added to the landfill, which was significantly reduced when Dart was allowed to cap and remediate a substantial area of “Mount Trashmore”.
It is also unclear how much longer the Department of Environmental Health can continue to tip waste into this unlined landfill. Officials have suggested it could be full by 2028, which would give the new government less than three years to develop a policy solution and implement it — an impossible feat.
During the tour, Ebanks-Wilks urged the public to take individual responsibility for reducing household waste.
“I’m challenging every household to recycle all Type 1 and Type 2 plastic items to reduce their garbage by just one bag per week,” she said. “This is one small change that each of us can make, and it will have a direct impact on the lifespan of the landfill. There are free recycling drop-off points in every district. So before your weekly grocery shop, take a moment to drop off your recyclables. These small everyday choices will make a big difference in the landfill capacity,” she added.
However, the government is not making it easy for people to recycle conveniently. The onus is on residents to clean, sort, store and then carry their recycling to what can often be overflowing and unpleasant recycling areas and place it in the relevant dumpsters. Furthermore, recycling is limited to aluminium, cardboard (unless it gets wet), glass and type 1 and 2 plastics only.
Ebanks-Wilks said it was a pleasure to meet members of the DEH, who work tirelessly, often at hours when many of us are still asleep.
“Their hard work is what is required to ensure the landfill sites in Grand Cayman and the Sister Islands [are] safe,” she said. “Working at a waste management and recycling facility is certainly a tough and often overlooked job. I want to thank all staff for their commitment, resilience and expertise in keeping the Cayman Islands clean and safe.”
However, so far, there is no indication as to the way forward on waste management. When CNS spoke with Premier André Ebanks last month, he also noted that the issue was a priority for the National Coalition for Caymanians. He said the issue had yet to be discussed within caucus, but everyone was “eager to find a cost-effective solution”, and there are plans to step up recycling and composting, among other things, as a wider policy is developed.
- Fascinated
- Happy
- Sad
- Angry
- Bored
- Afraid
Category: Environmental Health, Health
All this government has accomplished during their “first 100 day” period is getting photoshoots done in front of all of the obvious problems and telling us that they are problems.
Well, to be fair, they have stoked the fires of nationalism and racism brilliantly too!
(Pssssst – It has barely been 45 days and they’ve already put more in motion to directly benefit Caymanians than the last 3 governments)
And the DOE continue to say absolutely nothing about the biggest environmental disaster we have.
Add higher import taxes based on weight of non-biodegradable goods, and reduce the import tax rate on environmental friendly products.
Right now, If I see limes in a huge plastic box for $8, and the same amount of limes but in a small cardboard box for $10… I’m still buying the plastic box. If you use duty to increase the price of the wasteful packaging product to $11, and reduce the duty on the other to allow effectively $9 for the better packaged product, then it’s an easy choice!
Exactly, where’s the incentive to reduce waste? Same if someone sets up a private recycling business. Where is the concession from CIG to divert waste they have to deal with? Returning empty bottles to a brewery for a bottle credit for instance is an incentive to reuse.
Ever wonder why Dart gave glass crushing up, he received no concession from CIG for performing this service? Collecting and diverting waste from the dump isn’t a charity and never has been.
there is no-one in cig or civil service with expertise or qualifications to this crisis
civil service is filled with poorly educated people with zero ability to tackle these issues.
if we can’t be honest and face these facts we will never be closer to a solution.
Appoint Honorable Seymour & Hew as the special negotiators and have them get the Dart company to do the job no matter what it takes or costs. Dart is the only person that can save Cayman and both these leaders know him well.
Yes lets get all the ginals and morons involved – that will bring about a great outcome!
It would be nice to know what type 1 and 2 plastics are
Assume you are just trolling, but I will take the bait.
Look for the recycling triangle on the bottom of the plastic. There will be a number inside.
Or you could use the power of the internet to inform yourself.
It is indicated on the plastic item.
Full by 2028, unless we have a storm the requires a big clean up earlier, then what?? How this hasn’t been resolved by now is grossly negligent.
Old quarries need filling, just saying.
After reading yesterday’s artical about food security and the shortage of agricultural lands, I was left wondering why creating productive soil through composting was not a viable solution. Then, after reading todays’s news of the landfill crisis I spent 30 seconds querying AI and learned that according to studies 10,000 tons of the 65,000 tons of waste annually dumped in the GT landfill is compostable yard waste (2015 study). That doesn’t include the food waste that can be composted. Seems like a win/win for agriculture and landfill. Regional composting sites would also keep so many landscaping companys’ trucks off the road to GT.
Beacon Farms already composts food waste with a partnership with Island Hauling. Look it up.
Oh my dear Kathy, why not do as in the previous 40 years, let it burn? It’s proved highly cost effective in the past and takes no effort at all. Maybe if you read through the voluminous pile of past studies done on the dump you’ll realise that doing nothing has proven quite an effective strategy. Now why would you want to go and spoil it by actually implementing a real world solution recommended by real experts. That would be counterintuitive wouldn’t it?
You know who had a solution for the dump? PPM and Dart. This had capped and tidied a good chunk already before they were dragged through the dirt and now we are left with this clueless bunch who are completely lost.
PPM LOL !!!
PPM and Joey Hew are the best.
CIG has already burnt its bridges in the global waste to energy (WTE) marketplace with the failed REGen project. CIG’s inability to finalize commercial agreements in a timely manner raises serious concerns about execution capability and commitment. Projects that are halted or reversed based on changes in the political climate, affect investor confidence.
In addition, CIG is yet to formalise a policy for Public Private Partnership – without which no counterparty will come forward. WTE is not something the Public Works Department can handle.
Sorry Premier no “Easy Wins” when it comes to WTE. The only “Easy Win” is to approve and develop a new landfill because it’s faster than setting up a WTE facility.
Waste management is not something Minister Kathy or her ministry can handle. Someone like Wayne Panton ought to be appointed as WTE czar …and COs of multiple ministries should work together.
Wayne has been pretty disappointing all around. I mean he might be the best of the lot, but based on his record as Premier that just means the rest are worse not that he is capable of accomplishing anything.
Wayne is as much use as tits on a bull.
We are too small.
Pay some money and ship it off island.
too small correct.
but with budget deficit we won’t be shipping any waste off island.
2008 urgent priority, 2009 urgent priority, 2010 urgent priority, 2011 urgent priority, 2020 urgent priority… 2025 urgent priority…🔁
Countless landfill and waste studies have been done over the past 40 years. Where is this information, has it ever been collated and analysed? Maybe it’s actually buried in the dump? I’d bet that more than 80% of the recommendations in those studies were never ever implemented.
Why not have a specialist, experienced consulting firm, with absolutely no local connections of course, feed these study results into an AI platform to generate potential development plan options?
Or maybe just hand the job to a new local startup, silently partnered with a politically connected friends and family. After all we really don’t need a solution if the current situation can be used to perpetually milk the public purse.
Bread and circuses
No plan Kathy has no plan.
They never seen it before?
Good publicity pose.
I would wager a good chunk of change that neither had previously visited.
Well, super Franz is chairing a committee that is negotiating with Dart to resolve this and other national issues.
What does Franz have to report so far?
11@3:03pm -Relocating the dump was postponed in an early PPM administration allegedly due to the “nimby” sentiment impacting political will. Any other attempt(s) will likely face the same fate.
But is relocation even possible?
Relocate to where? Most viable locations become real-estate centered; polluting ground water lenses is a genuine concern (even with appropriate lining systems) in many other locations. It’s possible that the current site is the final destination, pardon the cliché.
But in any case, at our present population any Govt which re-engages the matter should cover the next 50-70 years.
Picture this, Sept. 1988 preparing for Hurricane Gilbert, two brothers are at the dump, dumping loose yard items;another pair seems to be doing the same. The entire cleared area for dumping is no more than 1 acre and nothing is over 1 dump-load high. The dump is located in the same location as today, which was then “the morass” behind Northern GT, in the boonies!
A mere 30 years of growth later, plus one devastating hurricane and a few other near-misses worth of “instant” debris later, the boonies have developed and the dump has grown.
It seems to me the Govt has no option but to revisit a regen-type concept with some entity. Seems the logical local entity is Dart. If there’s no further legal exposure, Govt needs consultant professionals on it’s team to either undertake it solo through international contract, or go back to the table with Dart, to do the same.
Relocation was never an option on the table you numpty. A new, lined site was the intention and also the most likely scenario once again.
80%, the majority of commercial landfill sites are unsorted development/demolition related construction debris. Household waste composes less than 20%. We either need an actionable plan to deal with it in the Cayman Islands, or an actionable plan to send it elsewhere, perhaps buying a large Cayman-specific landfill-suitable site in Honduras or Cuba. We don’t need to store it forever locally. Once the organic breakdown begins, the trapped methane pockets make it more hazardous to move around.
They beat down the PPM and Dart and now they are up sh*t creek. This is a monumental job that needs to be urgently and correctly dealt with. The government can not afford to do this alone and the NCFC will now need to spend millions again on consultants if they start from scratch or go back to Dart with their tail between their legs.
if Juliana is PPM then it was PPM that killed Regen and the financial stability of the country!
There has never been a better time to relocate waste management to a purpose built site somewhere in Bodden Town East or West –
Or maybe West Bay, North Side or East End 3:03……..?
No, they have elected representatives who form the government. Try to keep up.
I am glad that the new government has publicly acknowledged the critical nature of the dump situation and I hope that this new government will have the needed consensus to move forward with a solution. Part of the solution just may be clawing back money from the various vanity projects of the last government.
The past government acknowledged the problem and came up with a solution that the new government shut down. Now they have no idea what to do. They thought they had all the answers and are now left holding a very big problem clueless of how to solve it.
The dump has been (or should have been) a priority for the last 25 years. How many politicians have we had in that time? Don’t forget they are the highest paid politicians in the world.
True, but not as highly paid as the HSA Board.
here we go again…another non-update…step 1 on kicking the can down the road for another 4 years….zzzzzzzzzzz
just another day in wonderland.
This new government shut down PPMs actions regarding the dump calling them reckless and now haven’t got a clue what to do themselves. They will put the problem off for 4 years and then try and blame past governments again.
free tip for the new government…stop the waffle and start tackling these issues. same nonsense from anglin the other day on the deficit….
“Why aren’t they doing anything?!”
*government presents the things they are working on to the public, with explanations on what they are prioritizing*
“Why the hell are they wasting time telling us all this foolishness instead of working?!”
repeat ad nauseum
They are just preparing the public for their failures in advance. Making things seem way worse than they are paints them in a good light if they solve the problem and limits backlash if they don’t solve them. Just political BS.