THE CNMI Universal Garbage Collection Task Force is looking into tying the costs of garbage collection to utility bills, said KKMP radio personality Gary Sword, the task force chairman.
“The thinking behind the concept of tying it to your utility bill is the more electricity you use, that means the more money you have, the more food you’re going to buy, the more trash you’re going to make, and then you have a different rate. Whereas the people with very low consumption of utilities, of power, that you don’t have that much waste, and so you pay a lower rate,” he said.
He said the new system will implement house-to-house garbage collection.
Sword said, 25 years ago he was on a team that implemented in American Samoa a similar system, which remains in place today.
He said he served for 13 years in senior management at the American Samoa Power Authority.
He believes that instead of fining individuals and potentially placing them in jail for littering or illegal dumping, the task force is looking into alternative routes.
“Who’s going to do all of this stuff if the people are our friends and our families? So, the best option is to make sure that we collect all the garbage and process it and dispose of it in the same manner,” Sword said.
“We have thousands of containers coming in [with] goods. Where do all of these containers go? Where do all of the contents go? Well, it goes to our landfill. We dispose of 60,000 tons of garbage every single year in our landfill, and we’re running out of space, so we do need to do something to make sure that we first collect all of the garbage, properly dispose of it, and come up with some innovative solutions to reduce the amount of waste that ends up in our streams, in our oceans, [on] our roads, and all over our islands.”
He added, “Everybody wants to pay when they get something, but they don’t want to pay when they dispose of it, so that’s why littering has become a problem. But it’s also a public health issue. It’s also an economic issue because tourism is the only business, and [littering] just gives us a bad name.”
He did not mention how house-to-house garbage collection will address littering at beach sites, especially during weekends.
The task force has four committees: outreach is chaired by Sword; logistics, by Commonwealth Utilities Corp. Executive Director Gary Camacho; cost of service by economic consultant Matthew Deleon Guerrero; and comprehensive planning, by Office of Planning and Development Director Kodep Ogumoro-Uludong.
The task force was formed by Gov. Ralph DLG Torres’ Executive Order 2021-21.
Sword said their next meeting is scheduled for Wednesday, Oct. 27, adding that their deadline to submit a 90-day report to the governor is soon approaching.
“Hopefully, in a month, we will have some of the information and some options on how to approach this universal garbage collection system…. It’s a holistic approach. Everybody needs to be on board, different sectors, including our Public School System, so we can start the education of littering at an early age here in our community. And also, it needs to be step-wise… We have to take it slowly and step-by-step and make sure that it happens,” he said.
