NSWMA to Explore Converting Waste Into Energy

Executive Director of the National Solid Waste and Management Authority (NSWMA), Joan Gordon Webley, has said that the agency would be exploring an energy plan of converting waste into energy.
“The plan would allow the NSWMA to take out of the Riverton area and indeed the other landfills, those garbage which have been there for a long time and use them in providing energy,” she added.
Speaking at a media roundtable on local government reform, yesterday (March 6), at the Department of Local Government on Hagley Park Road, Mrs. Gordon Webley said that, “it is our hope that some of these energy costs will be given to us the collectors of the waste, so that we can start to pay our way.”
The Executive Director also noted that the agency would be seeking to improve its services, including plans to upgrade the entrances to its landfills.”We intend to be effective in the covering of our landfill. We all know that there are certain gases that leave the landfill and can cause damage to the persons that live in close proximity. So we are moving aggressively to periodically cover our landfills,” she emphasised.
Mrs. Gordon Webley said the NSWMA is moving to upgrade the fleet, and for 2008 there are plans to purchase 77 new pieces of equipment, including trucks, compactors and also transfer stations.
“Those transfer stations are going to be used to lessen our payment to the contractors in so far as travel time is concerned. In other words, instead of us driving miles and miles to get to our garbage disposal area, we will have large units and we will deposit, at closer proximity, into those large units, then just a tractor head will move those larger units to the disposal site, thereby cutting down on gas,” she explained.
She informed that the transfer station was new for Jamaica, and it would help the agency in its cost saving measures.
The Executive Director said the NSWMA would also be looking at the area of licensing, where the persons who collect garbage would be licensed.
“We are going to the business places to say, show us who has collected your garbage and we are going to go to those collectors of garbage and we are going to say to them, we need for you to prove to us when is it you went into our landfills, because there are many persons who are collecting garbage and depositing them all over the country. So, we are going to start tracking them down,” Mrs. Gordon Webley said.
Since its inception, the NSWMA has been serving the island and its populace, providing timely, efficient solid waste management services, in order to safeguard public health, while helping to create environment befitting for all to enjoy and preserve.