How Green Is This Pleasant Land?

Has the irony been lost on Barbados? It has two famous landfill sites. One is called Mangrove (see Nation report) and the other is called Greenland. Hardly anything natural can grow in the Mangrove (see how the bulldozer works). The Greenland site is notable for not being a green sight in the midst of what could be some green and pleasant land. Eye catching, isn't it.

Much as I would want to applaud the sensible treatment of waste, I am not a lover of landfills. Like for many things, we have an answer that is a palliative for a problem and not dealing with the underlying problems. Barbados has grown quite quickly in the past 50 years and people have become very acquisitive. But, most new goods are not natural and do not decay; they linger longer than we do (plastic bags, metal items, rubber goods, etc.). We have therefore gone for the easy route of legalised dumping, not that which challenges core behaviour.

People complain that this country is too small to house its population adequately and at the same time oversee giving large swathes of land to garbage. Much noise (dare I say it) is made about waste and garbage and disrespect for the environment and littering. You only need to drive a short distance anywhere, from the gritty, downtrodden housing areas near the south coast, to the areas adjacent to the stooshy mansions on the west coast, to see dumping and trash piling up. A casual drive will see at least a few missiles flying from moving cars as people jettison what is left from their meals (polystyrene food boxes, or plastic drinks bottles).

I applaud Mr. Paul Bynoe (owner of B's Bottles) who has now developed a car compactor at his existing recycling plant. Sure, it's business but it is a least an attempt to make less from the more that is there. Sending the compacted metal off to be melted and reworked somewhere seems like good sense to me. Until we get bio-degradable fridges and cars, this has to be one of the better options, not filling holes with used Hondas and Frigidaires.

Digging holes and filling them with trash is not a good environmental solution. Last time I read there was plenty of evidence about how toxic material leaches into water systems and then take decades for their bad effects to show up.

Do we really give two hoots about the next generation? More whistling in the wind.