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One year later, Government is set to evaluate the success of its inaugural recycling project in the Marchfield, St. Philip community, and, if all goes as planned, will be seeking to roll out a similar initiative in a Christ Church district.
According to Waste Management Coordinator with the Solid Waste Project Unit (SWPU), Thora Lorde, the Ministry of the Environment and Drainage was seeking to gauge the maturity of the community curbside recycling project launched last April.
"The pilot was conducted in an effort to see how Barbadians would respond to a curbside recycling programme here in Barbados.?? It has been a year since its launch and a survey is being prepared in order to glean residents’ views on the programme," explained Ms. Lorde, who said residents had already been notified.
The Waste Management official also cited ongoing plans for a similar programme at The Villages at Coverly. Noting that a SWPU team had conducted a site visit there earlier in the year, and had met with a favourable response, Ms.Lorde was optimistic about the potential for a second project.
"Plans are in the infancy stages, but we are hoping to bring it [the project] on stream between the second and third quarters of the year. We are very optimistic that with all of these efforts, we will have a Barbados where people see waste as a resource to be capitalised upon and not something to be discarded," she maintained.
The concept behind the Marchfield pilot was to use a newly-establised community, where residents were not set in their ways with response to waste disposal. The project saw a partnership between the SWPU, the Sanitation Service Authority and B’s Recycling, with residents encouraged to practise waste reduction and recycling at the household level.?? It also included an educational component which focused on Home Composting.
According to Ms. Lorde, in order to help facilitate the process, householders within the small Six Roads district were also issued with two refuse bins – one for general waste and the other for recyclables – including plastics, glass, metals and newspaper items, for separate collections.
Deeming the pilot a "pioneering step with respect?? to waste management in Barbados," then?? Acting Environment Minister, Denis Kellman, told last year’s launch?? that the programme, which focused on the collection of recyclables at the generation source,?? would allow the Ministry?? to gather?? relevant data?? pertaining to?? the logistics of a?? curbside?? recyclables collection programme.
He also underscored the importance of recycling to waste management practices and, by extension, environmental stewardship on the whole.
"We as a country presently generate approximately one thousand tonnes of waste per day, which is more than three times the amount we generated back in 1993.??However, with the implementation of several reducing, reusing and recycling measures, we have been able to keep that rate of generation steady over the last six years.?? And, indeed, through the combined activities of local recyclers and waste diverters we now landfill the same amount of waste as we did in 1993," he contended.