SAGICOR
Topic: Waste Management – Sanitary Landfill
Problem: Our island is well known for its beauty and its amazing Barrier Reef and we want to keep it that way. It
has come to our attention that we are having issues with the proper management of waste material and that is
where we got the idea of creating a sanitary landfill for the island.
Hypothesis: With this sanitary landfill we will no longer have to see an actual dumpsite where there is extreme
pollution. This pollution occurs in the air as well as on the land. This project would also benefit our eco-tourism.
Solution: Due to the proximity of the reef from the island a sanitary landfill is vital for La Isla Bonita. The island of
San Pedro has been burning waste for years now; as we know, the burning of waste material contributes to the
greenhouse effect as well as air pollution. We have been debating the proposal of shipping the island’s waste to the
mainland for proper disposal for quite some time now but that will be more costly. Instead, we are proposing the
idea of a sanitary landfill where there will be less pollution if constructed properly. This sanitary landfill will benefit
the island in many ways from island beauty to cost efficiency.
Firstly, a sanitary landfill is a deep opening in the ground where waste is buried under carefully monitored
conditions. Here, waste is isolated from the environment until it is safe. As mentioned before this will bring many
benefits to the island, but like everything else it will have minor effects but there are also measures that can be
taken to decrease the impact. With the use of a sanitary landfill, there will no longer be a need to have opened
burning, causing less air pollution as well as less ground water pollution. Sanitary landfills can handle very large
amounts of waste at low costs. The filled land can then be used for other purposes (eg: grass can be planted and it
can be used as a soccer field).
One of the most common effects of sanitary landfills is the release of toxic gases, BUT the main gas
produced is methane, AND methane can be used for energy which brings about another small proposal. This
methane gas produced can be collected and the energy can be sold to BEL which will then distribute it or it can be
used for cooking(stove). That is another benefit and it is an economic benefit. If we have a proper garbage disposal
system we will lessen the amount of illegal dump sites which will make the island look even cleaner and more
beautiful with WAY less garbage around and less pollution attracting more tourist, benefiting out tourism industry!
With this project we are planning to put bins at school and in town, we should have both organic and
inorganic trash bins as well as one just for bottles. We should put the bottle bins because here on the island there
are so many people picking out all the garbage just to find bottles and sometimes they leave some stuff out and the
island looks dirty. With this bin in particular it will benefit a lot since that is a major issue here and for sanitary
purposes too for the islanders who recycle these.
Background Information: Waste Management is the generation, prevention, characterization, monitoring,
treatment, handling, reuse and residual disposition of solid wastes. Our proposal for a proper waste disposal
system is to have our own sanitary landfill here on the island. A sanitary landfill is a site for the disposal
of waste materials by burial and is the oldest form of waste treatment. This project requires engineers and properly
trained personnel designing and monitoring the landfill. Organic landfills produce methane gas as well as leachate
which can be utilized as fuel for cooking and plant fertilizers, respectively.
Materials:
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Piece of land
Synthetic material
Clay
Waste material
Diagram: