Green Dream Projects Foundation transporting 3.4 tons of recyclables to the Verde SXM Idex SAS Eco-Site in French Cul-de-Sac (see Monday newspaper) is indeed a great achievement. These mixed plastic bottles and aluminium cans would otherwise likely have ended up on the already burdened Philipsburg landfill.
Mind you, it’s not the first such initiative. Several entities – among which the same foundation – shipped recyclables abroad earlier, including compressed car wrecks.
What gives this all the more significance was the local nature of the effort, using the French side’s trash-sorting and -recycling facilities.
Of course, the intention may never be to saddle them with the Dutch side’s waste management issues. However, doing certain things on an island-wide basis seems common sense particularly from an economy-of-scale perspective.
St. Maarten has made strides regarding the operation of its garbage dump with the help of project means from the Dutch-sponsored Trust Fund administered by the World Bank and implemented by the National Recovery Program Bureau (NRPB). Nevertheless, when it comes to how trash is collected and processed the country lags far behind many others and still has a long way to go.
Businesses, consumers and garbage collectors alike will need to be re-educated and provided with better facilities to separate and deposit waste, including household garbage. If people on the northern part of the island can do it, why not those across the open border?
