Unbiased look at the Sint Maarten Elections
BELAIR--Despite the constant talk and emphasis on tackling the country's rapidly-growing garbage mountain, a half-day environmental conference, hosted by Island Vision Foundation, on "Waste Management: Sustainability, Markets, and Initiatives for Small Islands" was sparsely attended at Belair Community Centre on Friday afternoon.
Democratic Party leader Member of Parliament (MP) Sarah Wescot-Williams opened the conference. The former prime minister said to the gathering of about 30 people: "Time is running out for the dump."
She called for "a common understanding" on tackling the country's waste problem. "We need to manage our waste. Every day that passes, it becomes more difficult to address."
Keynote speaker Margaret Bates, a professor at University of Northampton and manager of the Centre for Sustainable Wastes Management, highlighted the challenges to sustainable waste management and tools for waste reduction.
Bates said the drivers of sustainable waste management are proper legislation to regulate the existing situation, tackling public perception and accessibility to environment information, cost effectiveness and climate change.
She called for more information to be given to the public about the environmental hazards posed by the dump and for awareness programmes to encourage residents to reduce the amount of garbage they produce, and to re-use items where possible. Recycling, she said, was only part of the picture as not everything can be recycled.
Other options to tackle the growing waste problem given by Bates are a deposit-refund programme for bottles, a plastic bag tax, promotion of re-usable shopping bags, and fines for not complying with garbage separation protocols.
Bates, who visited St. Maarten for a similar conference in 2008, said the dump in just outside Philipsburg is "definitely bigger, but is better managed" than seven years ago.
The conference's main sponsor was Princess Juliana International Airport SXM.
