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Small Islands Voice Global Forum
Clean, green and serene – a message from island youth
The question: ‘How is garbage managed in other islands?’ asked by Dulph Mitchell from San Andres brought in a ‘torrent’ of replies, far more than we can post on this forum. People have written in to tell us about waste management initiatives in islands around the world. We have put all these responses and the information about the different initiatives on our website at http://www.unesco.org/csi/smis/siv/Forum/Comp9garbage.htm so you can read them, at your own leisure.
You can learn there about the waste management initiatives in the Pacific: American Samoa, Savaii, Samoa, Cook Islands, Fiji, Kiribati and Palau; in the Indian Ocean: Chumbe Island, Rodrigues and Mauritius; in the Caribbean: The Bahamas, Cuba and St. Lucia; and in the Atlantic: Aran Islands and Irish Islands.
In this final article on the topic of waste management, we hear about what some island youth are saying. Joseph Wachter, a secondary school student from Rarotonga, Cook Islands writes: On the island of Rarotonga in the Cook Islands (Pacific), garbage is fed to pigs or allowed to decompose, but trash in the form of plastics, aluminum cans, tin cans, rubber tires, etc. has been a big concern for over 25 years. Educating the children in schools about recycling and proper disposal of waste has been a priority for environmentalists here for over 20 years, with limited success and awareness of the problem. Older people are much harder to reach. Media of all kinds has been employed. I think it is a gradual process that will eventually be very successful; but will require years of awareness training. Start now and keep at it. Contact local radio, TV, and press to enlist their help to reach the people. Make presentations at primary and secondary schools and be a good example in your community. My secondary school has a wearable arts competition made of recycled materials every year.
From Hope Town School, The Bahamas (Caribbean), Stephanie, Louison, Bronson, Erin, Shannon, Nicole, Vaughn and Louivenson write: We here on this 5 mile long, 1 mile wide island of Hope Town share the same concerns as the person from San Andres Island with the garbage problem.
We have about 400 full time Bahamian residents on our island. There are probably that many, or more, Haitian immigrants here too. They have no idea how important it is to take care of this island that provides them with work! They just drop trash and pile up bags all over the area they live in. We survive on the North American tourists that visit our quaint island. The sheer number of tourists adds an unbelievable amount of garbage to our small dump that used to be burned once a week. It then became necessary to burn 2 times per week, then 3 and lately the fires never seemed to go out. As the dump got bigger - so did the fire.
After Hurricane Floyd nearly destroyed our island in 1999, our dump became the drop spot for anything and everything - burnable or not! On one area of the island they bulldozed all the lumber from destroyed houses and a young man who was a marina owner took the responsibility to burn it to clear the area. Soon after, he became very ill and after 2 years in and out of hospitals, he died of arsenic poisoning due to inhaling smoke from burning the pressure treated, chemical-soaked wood. Other people began to become more aware of the high incidence of respiratory problems on our island. It seemed the dump never stopped burning and we were all breathing toxic fumes. Foreign ownership and building on our island increased unbelievably after the hurricane because our Prime Minister dropped the import duty on building supplies for a year, to allow people to repair and build back. The foreigners took advantage of a situation that only a few Bahamians could! The garbage piled up even further - often fires at the dump would jump into the bush and we began to have terrible bush fires. The brave men who had the contract to handle the dump, wore full hazard gear when they worked there to avoid the toxins. Our island paradise was becoming a toxic wasteland!
Nearly a year ago, our town began having meetings to persuade our government to transport our garbage off our island to the larger island of Abaco (5 miles across the water) where there is a large dump. We were told that the mainland had filled their dump, too! We increased the pressure on the government leaders by having more meetings and having them up to see the dump site - they were horrified. Our teacher took us to all the meetings with officials and we were always recognized as we took notes on what was said. It may have been the pictures in the paper of our firemen, in full hazard gear, fighting a dump fire that got out of control that finally got the government’s attention. Or it might have been the letters to the government from the people who owned the property the dump was on, saying that effective immediately, no more dumping could take place on their land. Whatever it was, we are happy because in the next 3 months they had employed a company to come in to clear away the garbage and prepared a plan to barge a truck with 2 very large containers to our island 3 times a week. The truck drives off and delivers empty containers and picks up the full ones to transport the garbage off our island to Abaco - which will soon have a much bigger dump itself.
Our story has a happy ending - as of 3 weeks ago there will never be any more burning of garbage on our island! Our beautiful serene island can once again have clean air surrounding it. We wish all of the islands who have similar problems the best of luck in getting your officials to accept other methods of getting rid of your garbage other than stockpiling it on your island, or dumping it in the sea, or burning and spreading toxic fumes.
Remember, we students can become involved - after all we will inherit what is left of these islands and personally, we want them to remain ‘Clean, green and serene’.
Moderator’s note: If you know of any young people between the ages of 13 and 23 who would like to make their voices heard on issues such as this, then suggest they contribute their views (in English, French or Spanish) at http://www.islandyouth.org/discuss/forumdisplay.html?forumid=1867
The final word comes from Dulph Mitchell in San Andres (Caribbean) who started this discussion: Thank you for your interest in my query and the many answers received. I am now much more convinced that the people who live on small islands need to work together in order to aid one another in finding a solution to the very serious garbage problem that all of us are facing.
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