Cheaper Can Be Better

Even after all the composting and recycling has occurred, there is still some waste that needs safe disposal. Ideally, this is in a safe engineered landfill but, more often, rubbish is simply piled in open dumps.

Solid waste expert Takeo Tashiro, who is based at SPREP, at the Tafaigata dumpsite improvement project in Samoa. (Photo: Courtesy SPREP)

These leak methane into the air causing fires, bad odors and even climate change. They also leak leachate, a fluid produced by the breakdown of waste, which is ultra high in nutrients and causes damaging algal growth, which in turn, consume all the available oxygen in the water, suffocating fish and other animals.

In Samoa, a Japan- funded development project near the capital Apia has transformed waste disposal. The Fukuoka method has turned the Tafaigata landfill-Samoa's largest-into a clean, environmentally sound, and economic service.

Fukuoka is now the common landfill method in Japan. A joint project by SPREP, the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) and the Samoan government has brought the method to our Pacific Islands.

Like many landfills across the globe, the Tafaigata tip was an open festering dump. The tropical climate and methane gas from the rubbish ensured frequent poisonous fires. Toxic leachate would seep into the ground and affect water bores and the reef, poisoning drinking water and fish and eventually people. This has now changed dramatically.

The Fukuoka method originated from research at Fukuoka University, where scientists compared anaerobic and aerobic landfills. Under normal conditions, a waste pile quickly runs out of oxygen (i.e. becomes anaerobic) because the moisture and the digestion of the organics consume all of it. Blowing fresh air into the waste pile through a network of pipes was shown to increase the breakdown of organics such as food, paper and garden waste.

When the landfill is built a particular way, the researchers noted how the heat in the wastes caused a convection current, sucking air into the waste. This passive ventilation kept the waste pile supplied with enough oxygen to maintain rapid breakdown even without costly air pumps.

This aerobic process has many advantages. It reduces the toxicity of the leachate and the gases that are produced, reduces the smell and makes the landfill site available for other uses much more quickly. It can be calculated that the Fukuoka method, which releases carbon dioxide instead of methane, reduces the impacts of a waste dump on global warming by 60 percent, a vital issue for the vulnerable Pacific Islands!

Usually something that is such an environmental improvement costs a lot more. This method is not only cleaner, it's much cheaper than the conventional methods used in the U.S. or Australia. Wherever possible the systems mimic simple natural processes, use gravity rather than expensive pumping, and local materials rather than hard to get imported technologies.

Tafaigata used the old waste as walls to contain the new waste. The leachate was turned into clean water by using artificial wetlands and waterfalls and no expensive pipe system was necessary to collect the gases. Even the monitoring is done by putting the discharge water into a big fish pond to check its cleanliness, rather than by flying samples overseas for expensive analysis.

By reducing the costs of waste disposal while improving the environment, countries can put the money saved into better collection services to keep their environments clean. Tourism is the major growth industry for many Pacific countries but tourists will not visit if our islands are dirty. Good waste management is an important investment in our economy as well.

Our partnering with the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) and the Samoan Government has ensured the success of this demonstration project, and SPREP is proud to be associated with it. The onus is now on national governments to make use of this great example and replace the Pacific's dangerous open dumps.

The writer is the director of the Secretariat for the Pacific Regional Environmental Program, which is based in Apia, Samoa. See www.sprep.org.ws