Editorial: Waste Management, Let's Talk Solutions

In a special feature today (Pages 44-45), our Acting Managing Editor - News and senior journalist, Inoke Rabonu, takes a deep dive into a burgeoning problem for the city of Lautoka - Vunato Rubbish Dump.

Even if you miss the site, your sense of smell won't.

For what was once a small landfill in the heart of the greater Lautoka City, has now expanded out of control into a 50-acre of extensive expanse of waste, our journalist writes.

In 2015, a letter writer questioned if there was a strategic undertaking to relocate the site because, as the writer observed at the time, the rubbish would soon become unmanageable.

And sure enough, nine years later, it has. Rubbish as far as the eyes can see and bordering on the sea-shore, no doubt harming the marine and biodiversity in its way.

Collection pillars of recycling (CPR) (formerly known as informal waste pickers) and non-profit organisations are doing their bid to reduce waste at the site. An example of this is the Vunato residents, mostly women, who work effortlessly to separate the waste.

But at what cost - a day's work for 50 CPRs com-pared to two to three offloading of a garbage truck at the site in a day? And just how many garbage trucks are there?

That doesn't seem practical enough.

At the core of the problem, is the mindset of people who unwillingly don't wish to make a change to their habit.

All rubbish goes into one trash can and there you have it- civic duty, ticked!

We're all guilty of this.

The kitchen waste seldom goes to the compost in the backyard, we don't bother to collect bottles at home and send it to the recyclers, we also throw away reusable materials.

It's no wonder that our landfills expand quicker as far as the eye can see.

Pacific Recycling Foundation (PRF) is changing mindsets in schools and in the works place to promote waste management.

By separating rubbish, students and businesses are championing and promoting the three Rs - Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.

It doesn't have to take organisations that kind of mandate to come up with such initiatives, at home, we can practice the same.

It can even earn our enthusiastic children some cash if they participate, given that recycled bottles now fetch more cash than what it was.

And so it is imperative that we start developing and changing our mindset by initiating best practices at home.

For instance, those white trash that we send to the landfills? How can it be repurposed at home?

Can it be used for extra storage or gardening space in the front or backyard? Of course it can!

All it takes is conviction and intention to make the change.

So, next time we talk about waste management and what can the Government do to manage the waste problem, why not question ourselves first and say, 'what can we do to make our environment a safer and better place for our future generation?'

Feedback: ranobab@fijisun.com.fj