Citizens produce almost ten kilo of waste per day
GREAT BAY – St. Maarten is a wasteful community. That appears from data published in an unsolicited advice from the Social Economic Council to ministers Marlin, Emmanuel, Lee and Boasman. Per capita, citizens on the Dutch side produce on average 9.7 kilo of waste per day, 22 times more than the citizens of Curacao who produce just 440 grams of waste per day.
This means that the 39,410 registered citizens of St. Maarten produce 382,277 kilo of waste per day, or close to 140 million kilo per year (to be exact: 139,531,105 kilo).
This alarming number adds to the pressure on the government to find a solution for waste management. In 1998 the landfill underwent some changes designed to create more space. The calculated lifespan for the dump was ten years, meaning that by 2008 the landfill would not be able to take in any more waste. Nine years later, the facility, marred by regular fires, is still the only place for dumping the country’s waste.
Alarming number in SER-advice
The numbers the SER-report quotes show that managing the landfill alone is not a solution. The population has also to be managed into producing less waste.
Where Curacao produced with 150,000 citizens 66,000 kilo of waste per day, St. Maarten outpaces this by far with more than 382,000 kilo.
In 2009, the Executive Council of the Island Territory of St. Maarten explored cooperation with the French side that had just opened its eco-friendly waste management site a year earlier. But the talks came to naught. Now the SER says that the best way to go for St. Maarten is to seek renewed cooperation with the French side.
The SER-advice also contains characteristics of waste management in Small Island Developing States. They are quite recognizable: uncontrolled scavenging, regular burning as an integral part of disposal site management, poor location, weak legal and regulatory framework, inadequate management of hazardous waste and low public awareness of waste management issues.
The SER found that the French side has “an exemplary integrated solid waste management system in place. “Their focus is on waste prevention, recycling and composting, combustion and disposal in a properly designed, constructed and managed landfill.”
When the SER attempted to draft its advice about waste management back in 2015, it met with resistance from the Vromi-Ministry. This appears from a letter chairlady Oldine Bryson-Pantophlet sent to Prime Minister Marcel Gumbs on June 3, 2015. The letter shows that Vromi did not want to meet with the SER, saying that information about the dump was “confidential.”
The letter came with an attachment that contained eight questions about the landfill. Gumbs never answered them, so in December of that year, the same letter went out to Vromi-Minister Angel Meyers – also without results.
The SER advises the government to copy the integrated waste management system that is already in place on the French side. Another piece of advice is to separate waste and to sell the material. A public awareness campaign, renewal of the cooperation with the city of Amsterdam and updating the legal framework for waste management are also part of the advice.
Photo caption: The dump on Pond Island – for once not on fire – looked almost peaceful yesterday afternoon. Photo Today / Hilbert Haar
