THE Saipan Solid Waste Management Task Force has identified a site where garment waste will be stored temporarily.
Waste products from the garment industry can no longer be dumped at Puerto Rico starting on April 30.
Lt. Gov. Diego T. Benavente, the task force chairman, said the garment waste will be stored at the old and unused government warehouses in Lower Base until the new dumpsite in Marpi is completed by the end of December.
Benavente said large private warehouses will be rented by the government as “back-up.”
Garment waste accounts for 30 percent of the daily waste at the Puerto Rico dumpsite.
Benavente said the government will eventually ship out reusable garment scrap materials.
“We will have to (enter into) a contract with a firm that will take this garment waste material and take it off-island for recycling,” Benavente said.
The decision to store garment waste in warehouses was a result of Benavente’s inspection of various garment factories.
He said the task force realized that some garment factories have “very small” properties.
“They would have not any area within their compound to store their waste,” Benavente said.
