Wednesday, November 05, 2008

MANGROVES, coastal beaches and river banks in rural areas show the signs of increasing globalisation and a changing lifestyle.

This is of major concern for the Department of Environment in Fiji, which is charged with helping increase environmental care in the country.

According to a statement by the department, solid waste management in rural areas was becoming a major concern in the country because of changing lifestyles, increased awareness of human health and the environmental effects of poor waste management.

All of this has been the result of increasing globalisation and a changing lifestyle - something that is being experienced across the Pacific. The concern is that much of the solid wastes were indiscriminately disposed off in habitats such as mangroves, coastal beaches and river banks.

Without any real form of appropriate infrastructure and organised solid waste management systems in rural areas, solid wastes build up and contribute to increasing problems of pollution and human health effects.

One of the main concerns, which should hopefully be addressed in the 2009 National Budget -- due to be announced on November 28 -- is that minimums budget are generally given to rural local authorities on an annual basis to carry out such hefty waste collection exercises.

Rural households in Fiji are estimated to produce about 37, 600 tonnes of solid waste, the majority of which is reusable, compostable and recyclable.

That estimate is based on the household survey of about 10 percent of rural Fijian and Indian households in the Rewa Province in 2006.

"Using the costs of poor waste disposal reported in the same study, it is estimated that poor rural waste costs Fiji approximately $47,500 in human health costs," according to the Department of Environment.

"These, together with the opportunity cost of not recycling and not composting gives an economic cost of approximately $134,700 a year for rural Fiji; this is a conservative figure since not all costs associated with solid wastes could be estimated due to lack of baseline data."

The department believes that one of the best and fastest ways of addressing this issue is for rural households to adopt a reuse, reduce, recycle habit, which would see responsible disposal of residual wastes.

This is one of the big issues that have been highlighted in the lead-up to the launch of the annual Clean Up Fiji Day campaign.

The campaign will be launched this Friday, which Clean Up Fiji Day set for Saturday November 22 this year.

The Fiji Times is a major sponsor of the campaign.

Article reproduced courtesy of Fiji Times Online - http://www.fijitimes.com/story.aspx?id=105328