D.O.E. holds consultation on solid waste management
Belize’s garbage problem has reached a critical point and Belizeans have to start disposing of their trash properly. That’s the assessment of the Department of the Environment. This week they held a public consultation to review the draft of the Solid Waste Management Plan and the proposal for a sanitary landfill. News Five spoke with Chief Environmental Officer Ismael Fabro about this growing problem which threatens our environment, our health and our tourism industry.
Ismael Fabro, C.E.O., Ministry of Environment
“I think one of the biggest problems confronting Belize is the fact that we have a lot of our dumpsites placed in environmentally sensitive sites, in fact in areas that are unsuitable for any form of waste disposal. Some of them are dumped in our waterways. You see dumpsites along our roads, in mangroves, on islands… you name it.
The mile twenty-seven site, the way it is envisioned right now is that it will service the entire western corridor from the Western Highway from Belize City to the border. Again the sanitary landfill concept goes hand in hand with the concept of transfer stations where probably the Belize City dumpsite can be looked at for rehabilitation and converted to a transfer station which is like a holding station where waste is collected and put into bigger trucks and transferred to the mile twenty-seven site.”
Fabro stresses that while an environmental impact assessment is being carried out in the proposed site for the landfill, it is not, in his words, “a done deal”. He says a number of other proposed sites were evaluated, but at the moment the one at mile twenty-seven meets the necessary criteria. A sanitary landfill differs from a dump in that the trash is put into chemically treated trenches and covered with dirt at the end of the day. If the site is chosen, trash from the northern cayes may also be brought to Belize City by barge and then transported to mile twenty-seven. Eventually landfills would also be built for several southern towns and Corozal and Orange Walk dumps would be refurbished.
