Wheelabrator faces tall order

(CNS): The company that will now own and operate Grand Cayman’s landfill has a daunting task ahead tackling Cayman’s rubbish but the firm bills itself as being up to the job. Wheelabrator Technologies says it is a world leader in the conversion of municipal solid waste into clean energy. Having pioneered the waste-to-energy industry in the US when it designed, built and operated the first commercially successful facility in Saugus, Massachusetts, in 1975, the firm said it has converted more than 164 million tons of municipal solid waste into 86 billion kwh of energy. However, so far the firm has been shy in responding to press enquiries about how it will approach its latest and possibly mostchallenging dump here in Cayman.

The contract with the Cayman Islands government, announced on Christmas Eve, also requires the firm to address the condition of the existing landfill and introduce a recycling programme. The tender required that the winners of the bid to generate electricity and other "green energy" by-products in an “environmentally friendly" way, accept all types of waste, handle newly generated waste, and effectively manage and reduce all existing landfill waste at the George Town landfill site.

With the firm silent and officials from government revealing that there are still significant matters to discuss, the future of Grand Cayman’s waste management is not yet clear.

Speaking to CNS on the eve of the announcement, the chair of the technical committee, Canover Watson, said that the approval by central tendering of the technical team’s choice was merely the first step on a road to a complex solution. Negotiations with CUC, which will use the energy, as well as the financial negotiations with government are still to be completed. However, Wheelabrator was selected because of its resources and experience.

Nevertheless, there are many people in the community that still have concerns that the focus on waste-to-energy is the wrong solution. WISE, an advocacy grouped formed in 2010 to campaign for an entirely new multi-faceted approach to the country’s garbage problems, also pushed hard for the landfill to be capped and moved. However, in the tender process government made it clear that its preferred option was to keep the landfill on the current site.

Responding to government’s selection, spokesperson and project coordinator, Theresa Broderick, said the community still needed more information on what exactly has been proposed. WISE, she noted, had not speculated on who the service provider might be but had been concerned with the environmental issues, the regulatory processes and the long-term sustainability of any approach taken.

“WISE Cayman remains primarily concerned about the necessity to thoroughly assess and properly address the environmental issues of the existing dump which must involve a Site Characterization Study and its resulting remediation recommendations regardless of any waste-to-energy component,” she said. “WISE also remains sceptical on the adequacy of the existing site if, indeed, the landfill is to be responsibly remediated and, if indeed fully comprehensive facilities incorporating a combination of waste management methodologies, inclusive of recycling, are to be sanctioned to a level expected of a developed nation.”

She said that the activist group hoped that government has found a winning solution but the organisation would be following the developments in relation to the award and intended to gauge public opinion on the issue.

“Over the next couple weeks, WISE Cayman will conduct a random national public polling to ascertain the level of understanding of this issue by residents and voters alike and also the expectations of how their interests should be served,” she added.

There are concerns that the mining of the landfill could have serious environmental implications as no one knows exactly what is in the landfill, aka Mount Trashmore. What is certain, however, is that it’s full and that going forward Cayman must take a new approach to its trash by reducing the amount it generates and recycling as much of the trash as possible.