The next phase of the recycling initiative on Exuma will focus
on local communities that would receive small financial incentives
to recycle and compost food wastes. SEB would need to
improve staff relations and management commitment to begin
the benchmarking process in earnest and work toward an EarthCheck
certification. Small islands typically lack waste disposal sites
because of a shortage of appropriate land (e.g. not wetlands or adjacentto
wetlands) as well as lack of capacity. Population growth and
increases in tourism are generating more solid waste. Existing regulations
have proven ineffective because island governments have
inadequate staff and resources to enforce violations ofillegal dumping
and waste management. In addition, islands have little capacity
to deal with the growing volume of toxic and hazardous wastes.
Progress can be made with innovative private sector partnerships
that build community support for recycling plastics, metals,
paper and used oil. Sanitary landfills are expensive to construct and
maintain, butthis full cost of solid waste managementis not apparent
to residents or tourists. Delayed maintenance and expansion
of the local landfill only increases the long-term costs of mitigation
and pollutant remediation. Expansion of tourism can include
improving infrastructure related to waste management systems,
landfills and sewage systems. One of the most effective ways to
reduce solid waste costs is to reduce the volume of waste by largescale
composting and recycling. Government regulations on waste
disposal need to identify long-term funding mechanisms to support
partnerships that focus on solid waste reduction.
Recently, The Bahamas has begun to accept solid waste from
cruise ships in the port of Nassau. The Bahamas has for several years
had a policy of not accepting waste of any kind to be imported
into the country. This policy is regardless of whether the waste
is for disposal or recycling. The recent change in the Government
policy toward solid waste and the change in management structure
has allowed for a possible budget source for the solid waste
management.
Costs for waste removal need to include hauling and disposal/recycling.
Recycling is going to be key component of island
tourism into the future, though the implementation will be slow,
with setbacks and many “lessons learned” in the process.
Acknowledgements
Specialthanks toAnastasia Gibson and PauletteMcPhee for their
work with Recycle Exuma. Assistance in recording weights came
from Exuma Waste Management and Island Waste Management;
these companies also provided commercial waste hauling, weight
and billing records. The food waste bucket experiment would not
have been possible without the assistance of Ms. Charlene Reid
and Ms. Annette Carey, Sandals Emerald Bay. Jacob Patus completed
data entry of the landfill records. Funding was provided by
the Earthwatch Institute’s Coastal Ecology Project, the University
of Miami and Recycle Exuma.