Mount Trashmore and recycled politicians

| 19/02/2021

(CNS): The George Town dump has been a national crisis through the past six administrations, starting with the UDP government in power when Grand Cayman was hit by Hurricane Ivan in 2004, followed by the first PPM government, which took over in 2005, in which Arden McLean, who has since left the party and currently leads the opposition, was the minister with responsibility for environmental health.

For the last 16 years Mount Trashmore has been an increasingly smelly problem, both literally and metaphorically, with occasional health and environmental disasters when part of it catches fire. But the solution is always ‘soon come’, as successive governments appear unable to introduce a real and lasting solution.

While the question of what to do with the existing dump remains critical, the government’s ‘Reduce, Reuse and Recycle’ mantra has seemed half-hearted at best, even as activist groups are pushing for a change in attitudes among voters. Many residents are keen to do their part by recycling but recycling bins at supermarkets are often overflowing and Hurley’s is apparently no longer allowing them in its car park.

Will the next government actually manage to do something or will the dump just keep growing?

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Recycling administrative ineptitude

Should the next government prioritise a proper recycling and waste management facility?

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Who to dump? Who to recycle?

How important are candidates' ideas about dealing with the dump or past inaction to how you will vote?

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Category: Poll, Polls, Viewpoints & Analysis

Comments (14)

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  1. Anonymous says:

    Businesses, Restaurants, and Hotels should all be recycling. They are the biggest generators of post-consumer trash. The handful of major Distributors should only be importing items that can be easily recycled. There should be an extra 5% garbage duty on everything packaged in non-recycleable materials. See how fast consumer habits would change then.

  2. Anonymous says:

    This issue has been building for at least 10 administrations. Foresight does not appear to be our strong suit. Get the contract for the existing agreement done.
    Govt should exit commercial waste collection. Recycling may not be economical for the volume of items we have, BUT using them to generate power is.

  3. Anonymous says:

    I am all for recycling but we need to be realistic. Can we first get people to throw stuff in a trash bin rather than out the window of the car? Then we can work on recycling.

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  4. Anonymous says:

    When I drive by on ETH, the dump looks to be finally be in a state of reorganization by waste material and it looks like it is in the process of being capped. Is everybody else seeing something different?

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    • Anonymous says:

      Depends on your angle, have a look the next time you are on the ETH going North just after the ALT roundabout. They are now dumping everything on the backside of Mt Trashmore. Same old , same old. Sorting the waste into piles is not really anything to cheer about.

      • Anonymous says:

        True, but it is an optical improvement. They’ve only been at this task for a period of months.

  5. Anonymous says:

    I’m sorry, but everyone can recycle immediately if they wanted to. Consumer choices, handling actions, and responsibilities start at the merchant level and follow through to eventual disposal. There are a multitude of choices every day to decline the bag, the cutlery, napkins, and styrofoam, if you want to. Our household has been sorting for years. There are recycling depots all around the islands. How many excuses to fairweather-recyclers want to make for their own actions/inactions?!?

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    • Anonymous says:

      We pay Junk to collect every week. It’s been amazingly sad to see how much we were throwing away. My children help me sort it even. It doesn’t cost much because it’s split in our strata.

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    • Anonymous says:

      Exactly. We use an old liquor store box for our household paper/cardboard, and have a blue box in the corner of our kitchen pantry for all the rest. Been sorting for years. Ratio is about 3:1 post-consumer recycling to trash.

      There’s almost no proportionate effort spent on consumer and merchant education. If Distribution companies allocated 0.5% of their profits to CSR-based recycling efforts, we would very quickly have a lot less landfill input.

  6. Anonymous says:

    Its not their view of the dump solution. (They’ll all agree with some version of the current plan.) Its their view of the past inaction. If they accept that there are good reasons (whatever they may be) for the current length of delays then they accept that for anything else. Whatever your or your politicians particular passion projects may be. That they may actually have diferentiable ideas on.