Renew Bahamas President and CEO Gerhard Beukes yesterday called for stronger enforcement of the legislation governing the New Providence Landfill, calling on all stakeholders to address the "symptomatic" issues fueling the facility's fires. Beukes told Guardian Business that while Renew Bahamas is conducting its own analysis into the site as part of its remediation efforts, he was not aware of any plans for a government-sponsored scientific team or consultant carrying out its own studies as recently suggested by Minister of State for the Environment Kenred Dorsett.
"We have been doing gas analysis at the site, and once we've got a decent amount of data available, we will be sharing that with the government," stated Beukes following a massive fire at the New Providence Landfill that broke out on Saturday last week.
However, Dorsett recently said that the government would deploy its own team in response to the latest fire, stating that the government had, "engaged a scientific team that will come in so that we could move on to the next stage of systematically ensuring that the gas is extracted from the landfill to mitigate against future fires". It remains to be seen what this response team entails or how it will interface with Renew's own efforts at the landfill.
Renew Bahamas has acted as first responder to a spate of landfill fires since assuming management responsibility for the site last year. Beukes believes that the Renew team has performed well in addressing the flare-ups at the landfill, but feels that the country's legislation regulating how and where certain materials is disposed of is not being adequately enforced.
"I think our response time is good, but it needs to improve even more to relieve the situation on the surrounding areas. Any smoke that comes out of it is seen as unacceptable so that's the perfect scenario that we're aiming for," said Beukes.
However, he acknowledged that changes to the country's waste management practices - such as stricter disposal procedures for flammable materials - will not happen overnight.
"I think it's like when you have a cold. You can buy many more hankies and wipe your nose, but there are deeper symptomatic issues that we need to fix and unless we - all the residents of the country - change the way that we do things, these fires will always continue," he said.
Renew officially launched the country's first recycling plant in June, and though Beukes noted that the Renew has been increasing production at the recycling plant since June, its immediate efforts have been directed at the fires.
"What we're working on very aggressively now is our plan for remediating and reconstructing the full landfill. We're very aware of the symptomatic issues that the landfill fires have caused over the last number of years, and we are confident that our long-term plan for solving this problem will be successful," he said.
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