The Sanitation Service Authority???s (SSA) Southern Depot will soon be relocated temporarily to Greenland, St. Andrew, to facilitate the start of construction of a new administrative building.

This was disclosed by Minister of the Environment and Drainage, Dr. Denis Lowe, yesterday during a press briefing at the SSA???s Southern Depot at Vaucluse, St. Thomas.

The Minister said that the contractors were expected to break ground on the five-storey building within another four to five weeks, thereby moving to the construction phase of the project which is expected to take between 12 and 15 months.

During that time, Dr. Lowe said services presently provided by that facility will be moved to the Greenland landfill temporarily where the infrastructure is already in place to accommodate operations. He added that the trucks presently housed at the Vaucluse site will also go there as their resting point and for the changeover in drivers.

Meanwhile, Dr. Lowe said Government was just under two months away from signing off on an arrangement to begin construction of a waste-to-energy plant at the Mangrove Pond Landfill in St. Thomas.

Projecting that construction would take at least 18 months, the Environment Minister said Barbados would be the first in the region to have an ultramodern waste-to-energy plant.

He reiterated that the new facility would see less waste going into the landfill, and would start the process of phasing out landfilling in Barbados.

???It would bring a leading edge waste management programme to deal with the management of waste and the energy it could produce, and the economic returns,??? he said.

The Minister noted that after the new facility came on stream recyclable materials would be sent to the plant. However, he gave recyclers the assurance that Government would continue to work with them to ensure that they were not disadvantaged.

julia.rawlins-bentham@barbados.gov.bb

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