Trash and recycling

When I see the way many people treat the dumpster sites - ignoring all the rules - throwing bags all over the site, leaving large items like refrigerators, stoves etc, leaving waste oil and TV's and other toxic materials, stores who use public dumpsters not a private service - yes, I can agree with her in many ways - It must be very discouraging -- and the disregard of the dumping public certainly does not instill any pride in our island or give any reason to believe people will change. Just my observations on a daily basis.

The dumpster system could easily work just fine if they were emptied regularly and not abused the way people do now.

They could remedy the situation of people leaving furniture, appliances, etc., by having a separate walk in bin for those items.
Waste Mismanagement Authority has made no inroads with recycling because they haven't even tried, despite offers of FREE help and advise.

Instead, a few years back, they paid a million dollars to a company for a study to charge a tax on every item brought into the VI, at full weight at landing, which was shot down due to public outrage and PSC.

The guy Mapp was renting his $12,500.00 per month villa from has a contract from WMA to haul garbage. WMA doesn't manage waste, they manage contracts for waste haulers. They don't know how to manage waste. Look at the methane system they installed that burned up. Everyone with an smidgen of intelligence would know that those pits have to be lined. They weren't, they burnt and wasted all the money invested in that project. On a trip to the dump a couple years ago, I saw a huge conveyor belt, sitting, rusting, out in the open. I asked what it was and the guy at the dump told me it was purchased by WMA but they bought the wrong "ting" at the cost of
$55 thousand dollars, so there it sat. Going to the dump is an incredibly unpleasant experience, I might add.

They have not made attempts at educating the public with regard to to recycling. When I'm in the states, I recycle. Of course, up there I don't have to take my trash on a scenic island tour to dispose of it, either. I just put it out on the expected days, sorted and it's picked up.

There are less bin sites while the amount of trash we produce just increases. They need someone in charge that actually is knowledgeable about managing waste. Cornwall is an epic FAIL.

People sort their garbage for disposal at the Peters Rest site every day.

The site in Lindberg Bay is designed to be a collection point for appliances etc. -- people still just drop them at whatever dumpster they can.

The Dumpster near my house is less than a mile from the transfer station on St. John. You could set up a couple of apartments with all of the appliances and furniture on the ground at the Dumpster near my house. I would even say that most people who visit this Dumpster either drive by the transfer station first, or will drive by it after, during business hours.

I think that if there is to be success at a recycling program, we'd have to start seriously pushing it to the kids in school. Actually, it is something that should be pushed in schools whether we have recycling or not. Having a clean up day once a year for Earth Day just isn't cutting it.

The National Park Visitor center just started something I thought was cool. If you buy a reusable water container from their store, you can fill it up with drinking water there at no cost. I'd like to see more of that at other places. Seems like convenience stores could be convinced to do that if they charge a small fee they could be making a pretty big profit. St. John Ice Company lets you refill containers at a discount which we take advantage of.

The site in Lindberg Bay is designed to be a collection point for appliances etc.

But who knows that? Julie addressed the subject of education in her post but the word needs to get out to all residents, young and old alike and consistently. It's not enough to toss a few ads into the local papers once in a while announcing special roadside/station pickups and dropoffs. They're as ineffective as the slew of "Littering fine $1000K" that dot the landscape. The message has to appeal and be consistent in order to be effective.

They're as ineffective as the slew of "Littering fine $1000K" that dot the landscape.

There is a $1,000,000 fine for littering? 🙂

Typo. $1K. 😀

The site in Lindberg Bay is designed to be a collection point for appliances etc.

But who knows that? Julie addressed the subject of education in her post but the word needs to get out to all residents, young and old alike and consistently. It's not enough to toss a few ads into the local papers once in a while announcing special roadside/station pickups and dropoffs. They're as ineffective as the slew of "Littering fine $1000K" that dot the landscape. The message has to appeal and be consistent in order to be effective.

(tu)
I didn't know about the Lindberg site.
Is that the one on Blackburn Hill?

WMA is going to be eliminating all bin sites and you'll soon have to pay to get rid of your garbage in addition to giving it a scenic island tour.

Apparently, you may be able to pay for curbside pick up which on STT with our steep roads and driveweys is going to prove problematic. No idea of costs but it'll probably be as steep as our roads so be prepared for increased fees and taxes on this.

Additionally, WMA is presently soliciting bids for WTE plants like one that sparked so much controversy and was ultimately denied.

http://virginislandsdailynews.newspaperdirect.com/epaper/iphone/homepage.aspx#_articledd671e8f-d334-4b02-ac02-bcd6c5a11a54/waarticledd671e8f-d334-4b02-ac02-bcd6c5a11a54/dd671e8f-d334-4b02-ac02-bcd6c5a11a54/0/true

The Lindberg site is just to the west of the police station.

Thank you.

People sort their garbage for disposal at the Peters Rest site every day.

The Peters Rest facility is a model for how all of the collection sites should be - although, extended hours would be nice. Contrast that to Mon Bijou's site where it's turning into it's own landfill.

Aluminum cans separated at the Peters Rest site are recycled. This uses the equipment the Recycling Association (now part of SEA) helped the Boys & Girls club obtain. The operator at the sorting facility at the landfill handles everything. A portion of the revenue goes back to the Boys & Girls club - so keep recycling cans St. Croix!

The Islands need to adopt the pay for recycling model. Pay folks to bring in those cans and bottles and make mandatory seperation of trash into different containers at your curbside into different bins, well you get the idea. People here in Socal stand in line to recycle cans and bottles (including plastic ones) for pay, it does work.

Curbside bins will be a collection issue for a steep terrain.

There are a couple of metal recycling places on STT that will pay for waste metals including aluminum cans

I grew up in Michigan where there is a 10¢ deposit on aluminum cans, glass and plastic bottles. You didn't see many of those on the side of the road or in the trash! And trash cans were regularly picked by people to collect any that got tossed. It took me awhile to not look at that stuff in the garbage here as money.

My comment about hitting the kids in school.... my thinking is yes, educating the adult public to recycle is going to be difficult. If you push it in the schools when kids are young they will grow up knowing how important it is. They can go home and educate the adults in their household. And it's a job easy enough for a kid to do, so they can even be the person in charge of it at home. I do not see adults as a captive audience when educating about recycling. You can run a million ads and it likely would just be a waste of money since we can turn the channel, flip the page, and move on to something that is more interesting. School age kids ARE a captive audience. They have to go to school, and they have to listen to what they are being told. So we have to educate from the bottom up.

I grew up in Michigan where there is a 10¢ deposit on aluminum cans, glass and plastic bottles. You didn't see many of those on the side of the road or in the trash! And trash cans were regularly picked by people to collect any that got tossed. It took me awhile to not look at that stuff in the garbage here as money.

Same. Now the cynic in me would question how the grocery stores here would implement the recycle centers they have in Michigan grocers.

Same thing in Vermont for decades.
You pay the 10¢ per item deposit at store for canned beverages, glass bottles and when empty, you take it back to store, they return your money and collect empties for recycling. As spring approaches and snow melts, boy scouts, girl scouts, school groups and others go out to collect what cans and bottles they find to make money. It was pretty simple.

It was simple but they need to make capital investments for the recycling machines. Will the grocers buy them? Will govt? Where will they put them? It started out you bring your recyclables to a person who sorted, then morphed into doing it yourself with automated machines. I found I gave away cans to charity much more after that happened since wait times were long and didn't want sticky mess on my hands when I shopped.

The government already collects a premium/fee/tax on all imported bottles/cans. The money goes to Waste Management under the Anti-Litter and Beautification Fund.

The government already collects a premium/fee/tax on all imported bottles/cans. The money goes to Waste Management under the Anti-Litter and Beautification Fund.

With most of that revenue going to remove junked vehicles which island residents dump.

The new Mahogany Run dumpsite on STT looks complete, should be opening soon and is hopefully a step in the right direction for disposal:

http://virginislandsdailynews.com/news/work-to-begin-on-mahogany-run-dump-site-1.1827630