Travelling the organic way
Published:Sunday | April 3, 2011 | 12:00 AM
Brian Bonitto, Special Assignment Editor
TO some it could be seen as recycling, but to National Solid Waste Management Authority (NSWMA) boss, Joan Gordon-Webley, it is turning trash into treasure. According to her, organic garbage and shrubs removed by the garbage-collection agency from Jamaica's roadways are taking on a new life.
And, come June, the executive director hopes to introduce an organic fertiliser to local shelves.
"We are big on composting. We're currently arranging the labelling and bagging of the product. We'll have 20lb bags for the housewives and 50lb and over for commercial use. And it is environmentally friendly, very affordable and safe to use. The compost has been tested by the scientific lab in the Ministry of Agriculture and found to be of high quality," Gordon-Webley told Automotives. "A brand name has not yet been decided on."
She said organic garbage, such as of remnants of mangoes and ackees from processing plants, and cuttings from landscaping of the roads, are used in the compost.
"We also have an MOU (memorandum of understanding) with Caymanas Park," she said. She explained that the racetrack supplies the NSWMA with manure while her agency offers services, such as the burying of dead horses.
Income-generating project
Gordon-Webley - a former Jamaica Labour Party member of parliament - highlighted another project of the NSWMA's one-year-old Parks and Garden Division, which she said has been generating income for the government agency.
She recounted how that division was created.
"My thinking was that while picking up the garbage, we needed to beautify the highways and byways as well," Gordon-Webley told Automotives. "And this has turned out to be one of our greatest advancements."
She said the NSWMA, which employs over 4,000 persons, proposes beautification concepts to companies along several strips of roadways. And if the concept design is accepted, the NSWMA is then contracted to execute the project.
"We signed a two-year contract with Sampars Cash and Carry in March to landscape and beautify a section of Marcus Garvey Drive," she said.
The contract, valued at J$4.17 million, will see work beginning at the intersection of the Portia Simpson Miller Square and continue south along Marcus Garvey Drive, ending at the Jamaica Railway Corporation premises on Darling Street, downtown Kingston.
"Our initiative is growing by leaps and bounds," she said. "We have about seven other private firms that we are working with."
The executive director said, through the initiative, her agency had acquired two trucks and one chipper.
She said an example of her agency's handiwork can be seen at the entrance to the town of Falmouth, at the old hospital site in Montego Bay, and the Jamaica Conference Centre and its environs.
Gordon-Webley said the NSWMA recently leased 35 acres of land from the Urban Development Corporation, located beside the Ferry Police Station on the Mandela Highway.
She said the agency would be planting sod grass, palms, ornamental and fruit trees that could be used on any project the NSWMA is required to do.
"We are earning some money, not from direct government subvention, but through contracts that we are winning," she added.