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International Waters Project

Jenrok Models Improved Waste Management for the Marshall Islands

8/19/2005

From Suzanne Chutaro in Majuro

For many years Majuro Atoll, the capital and gateway to the Marshall Islands, has suffered from unplanned and uncontrolled development resulting in increased poverty, crime, and pollution. This situation has now reached a crisis point where it is now seriously compromising the quality of life for the 25,000 people who live there.

The long-term economic stability of the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI) is also in question as there is no real industry to support its growing population and unemployment is spiralling out of control. Unemployment was pegged at 30 percent in 1999 but economic conditions have since deteriorated.

If the fate of the country is dim then you could already say that the Majuro community of Jenrok Village was already in the dark.

In 2003 Jenrok was selected as the pilot area for the International Waters Project (IWP), an initiative designed to help this community address the “root causes” of the waste management problems now threatening the environment and public health.

The Marshall Islands IWP is managed by the Marshall Islands Office of Environmental Planning and Policy Coordination (OEPPC) and the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP).

Significantly 2005 is also the Pacific’s “Year of Action Against Waste”, a SPREP initiative to help Pacific Island countries improve the management of solid waste. SPREP is working with all its member countries to develop a Regional Master Plan to improve the management of solid waste and to help countries to develop their own national waste management strategies that genuinely address the root causes of their waste management problems.

Yumi Crisostomo, Director of OEPPC, says Majuro’s existing waste system and limited land space is simply coming under more and more pressure from rapidly increasing volumes of waste.

With the total land area of the Marshall Islands equalling a mere 70 square miles (181 square kilometres) and a population nearing 60,000, a poorly managed waste collection and disposal system has become costly for the Government as well. In just five years, four separate dumpsites have been constructed and closed on Majuro Atoll.

Majuro does not have a modern sanitary landfill – now commonplace in other Pacific Island nations. The current dumpsites are located right on the shoreline and much of the mixed (organic, hazardous, recyclable) waste is simply overflowing into the sea.

Throughout Majuro householders are encouraged to dispose all of their waste into large skip bins located on the main road. These bins are frequently overflowing with rubbish creating an unsightly and unhealthy environment with increased risks of attracting rats, flies, and disease. Despite having bins located throughout Majuro Atoll many people continue to put their garbage in pits or throw it in the sea.

Identified as a major problem for the nation, solid waste management has been a constant topic of discussion by both public and private sector groups. Most recently the Majuro Chamber of Commerce President Carlos Domnick called for “more action and less talk on trash,” a sentiment echoed by Jenrok Leroij (high chief) Takbar Ishigeru.

“I’m sick of talking (about trash),” says Ishigeru who has seen her village learn through the International Waters Project. “We understand the importance of separating - just give us the tools and bins to separate our trash.”

Ishigeru says that she wants her community to move forward and attributes most of the illness experienced by the community as a result of poor waste management.

“The waste causes sickness,” says Ishigeru. “If people are sick they can not work or go to school, they can’t better themselves.”

But solid waste management in the Marshall Islands is fragmented. Currently there are three government agencies involved in solid waste management — Majuro Atoll Local Government, which collects and disposes the trash, the Ministry of Public Works, which manages the dump site, and the Environmental Protection Authority, which overseas operations to ensure environmental regulations are not violated. All three are also members of a newly established Solid Waste Task Force (SWTF) comprising of secretary level national government officials and the mayor of Majuro Atoll Local Government. This is a formalized advisory group established by the RMI Cabinet.

Although there has been so much involvement by different bodies, the Marshall Islands solid waste management system is a classical example of the old saying ‘too many hands spoil the pot.’

“The present system is not sufficient,” says Crisostomo. “The bulk of waste management financial support for operations comes from the national government.”

In late 2004, the IWP project produced a ‘Social and Economic Baseline Survey’ of Jenrok Village, which provided the government of the Marshall Islands with a clear picture of the lives and hardships facing its citizens living in Jenrok. In endorsing the report, RMI President Kessai Note said that the government considered the “findings of vital importance,” stating that it was “the first survey-study detailing the root causes of poverty, waste management issues and governance and social difficulties in a community in the Marshall Islands.”

For the national government, the IWP survey provided a snap shot into the lives of the Marshall Islanders on Majuro Atoll — a startling image that documents the hardships of an urbanized population that has become inundated with waste and pollution.

Following the initial ‘Social and Economic Baseline Survey of Jenrok,’ the IWP commissioned a waste stream survey of the pilot area. Preliminary results found that on average the village of Jenrok with its population of 1,814 generated two tons of trash per day - that’s about 1.06 pounds per day per person. Translate that into the population of Majuro alone and the capital is averaging nearly 30,000 pounds or 15 tons of trash per day, which equates to nearly 11 million pounds or 5,475 tons of trash being produced annually in the nation’s capital alone — all of which end up at the dumpsites.

The IWP waste stream analysis found that 50% of Jenrok’s garbage (by weight) was green waste, 20% was recyclable aluminium, PET plastics, cardboard, and an astounding16% consisted of disposable diapers. If people in Jenrok composted and recycled all their current garbage and used cloth diapers it would reduce its waste by 86% - leaving only 14% needing to be collected and sent to landfill.


Crisostomo, who is also involved the SWTF, says that while currently there are no strategies with clear targets for waste reduction, recycling, or composting, her office is looking at lessons learned from the IWP pilot project to model an integrated waste management system at the national level that “addresses waste collection, recycling, composting and segregation, focusing on environmental degradation and poverty reduction.”

She says that the pilot IWP project in Jenrok is being looked at as a model that “focuses on core and cross-cutting concerns such as best practices, strategic public awareness, community pride and engagement, and economic incentives.”

There are no financial incentives for people to recycle, compost, or minimize the amount of rubbish they put in the red bins. There are no fees for people disposing “commercial” waste and all waste services are funded indirectly through taxes on government salaries.

Late last year Kiribati introduced a small 5-cent levy on all plastic bottles and cans entering the country. The 4-cents returned for every empty can and bottle has proven to be more than enough of an incentive for people to keep this material off the streets and beaches.

Crisostomo says the IWP is now looking at developing a business plan to determine if Jenrok could establish it’s own centralised recycling and composting facility. It’s hoped that this business plan will also help to inform the Solid Waste Task Force on the viability of promoting recycling and composting initiatives at the national level.

It has been over a year now since the IWP pilot project started in Jenrok Village and since then the residents and traditional leaders have seen notable changes not just to aesthetics of the environment but with the behavior of the community themselves.

“People are actively participating in keeping the community clean,” says Anwel Biranej the alab (clan head) of Jenrok Village.

Every Saturday the Jenrok community gets together to clean the village. Biranej says that now there is a greater sense of community pride and that because of the IWP project, people have developed a mindset to not only clean and separate trash and recyclables but they have also stopped littering.

“Even if this pilot project ends we will still continue to keep our community clean,” says Biranej. “It doesn’t cost us anything to clean and the benefit is great. If we can keep the community clean there will be less disease, people will be healthier.”

As the IWP project in Jenrok is now entering into its third phase, a business plan is being developed to assess the feasibility of a centralized recycling and composting centre for the Jenrok community.

Crisostimo says she is hoping that the lessons learned from the IWP Jenrok project could be used by the SWTF to advise the national government on ways to manage and improve the solid waste problems on Majuro and to replicate them at the national level.

As a nation, the RMI still has a long way to go to address its solid waste management situation. But through the IWP project Jenrok village is championing its way to become a model for the rest of the nation.

ENDS

Contact Name	Steve Menzies
e-mail	stevem@sprep.org
Phone	(685) 21929
Fax	(685) 20231

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