Barbados Today

There is nothing solid about Government’s plans for the management of waste in Barbados.

In fact, as far as Barbados Labour Party spokesman, Senator Dr. Jerome Walcott, was concerned, the current administration had no clue how to deal with the problem and had failed to specify plans.

“Suffice it to say that in the manifestos of the Government, 2008 and 2013, … you would not see the words solid waste, far less management, appearing on any page of the manifesto — not a clue, not a plan for solid waste management in this country,” the former Minister of Health said this afternoon in the Senate while speaking on a resolution to acquire land for the growing Mangrove Pond Landfill.

“Check them; 2013, the most recent manifesto, we see it shrouded in issues like green energy, … not a specific plan. We were speaking about the need to look at the legislation … We (the BLP) had established a committee to look at a regulatory framework in terms of the operations of the various entities that would be dealing in recycling.

“Nothing has happened. We had said that you needed to institutionalise the whole concept of solid waste management and that there was a need for a link between that unit and the Environmental Protection Department, nothing has been done.

“And of course there was the issue of monitoring and evaluation. I don’t know that after six years … anything further has been done in terms of these fundamental matters,” he stated.

Walcott said Barbadians now had enough of the “wish-wash and a speech here and speech there” and wanted specifics about solid waste management.

“Tell us because we are all in this together in terms of solid waste, we all live here, we all have to survive in Barbados and it is a problem for each and every one of us,” he said.

“We started the education (and) it has to continue. The issue of home composting, all of these were things that were started and … don’t let us get carried away with this whole issue of green energy …, we need to deal with various and important components of solid waste management.” (SC)