SWMCOL slammed for '40 years of failure'

CONSERVATION group Fishermen and Friends of the Sea (FFOS) says the Solid Waste Management Company Limited (SWMCOL) is responsible for failing to have the Beverage Container Bill passed in 20 years.

The group also said the company had failed in its 40-year existence to develop an adequate garbage sorting and collection programme.

FFOS issued a statement after SWMCOL chairman Ronald Milford appeared before the State Enterprise Joint Select Committee on Monday, when Milford answered questions about the company's challenges with illegal dumping and recycling.

Milford said 95 per cent or 700,000 tonnes of the country's waste is dumped in landfills annually.

He also said, "As an organisation, we are unable to police the entire population with respect to how and where they dispose of garbage."

In FFOS's response on Thursday it acknowledged his concerns, but said, "Sorting garbage is common practice in developed nations. FFOS endorse the call for increased litter fines and have for decades appealed for recycling legislation."

FFOS also accused Milford of failing to disclose what percentage of the 700,000 tonnes of waste is plastic.

It said, "Despite programmes such as the now defunct Plastikeep and ICARE, plastic continues to pollute our waterways, roadways and rivers. For 20 years, the Beverage Containers Bill has languished on Parliament’s shelves.

"This cutting-edge environmental management is designed to kickstart a recycling sector. If passed it would lift the cost of the burden of pollution from the taxpayer and place a minuscule expenditure on the corporate sector while spurning a whole new industry of waste collectors."

The bill, FFOS charged, has been on successive legislative agendas without being laid in Parliament.

"Why? Who benefits? In 2019, former Public Utilities Minister (Robert) Le Hunte stated the bill was '98 per cent complete' and 'would be tabled in Parliament in a few weeks.' FFOS is concerned that PM Rowley is failing the environment."

FFOS said a beverage container recycling fee is a "proven way to minimise the burden of plastic waste management. As the entity responsible for waste management, shouldn’t the passage of this bill be SWMCOL’s top priority?"

It was also concerned that TT generates between 800,000 and 1,000,000 waste tyres a year.

"Whilst SWMCOL (has) committed to repurpose 30,000 tyres for the construction of coastal retaining walls, this is a drop in the ocean of waste tyres that we produce annually."

FFOS also asked the whereabouts of the $20 tax per imported tyre, implemented in 2018, to cover the cost of proper disposal of used tyres.

"What has happened to monies collected from this tax? Have our government used this tax for its intended purpose? Should we continue to burn tyres at the landfills?"

There was also no mention of previous intentions of closing existing landfills, which are "improperly sited" and filled to capacity, FFOS said.

"For over 20 years (we) have raised alarms about the improper and dangerous location of all of our dumps and Government’s reckless failure to address their wanton toxicity and leachate discharge into our environment.

"Daily, Beetham smoke stifles and suffocates citizens who reside or work downwind and has become the toxic lung of our capital city with leachate oozing from this unlined site adding to the ‘cocktail of carcinogens’ in our Gulf of Paria marine food basket."

It warned that unless MPs act, waste collectors will "continue to suffer the loss of a viable self-sustaining recycling economy," and public health "will be compromised in an ever-growing gulf of carcinogens."