National Solid Waste Management Authority of Jamaica

The National Solid Waste Management Authority

(NSWMA) is showing Jamaica it “is cool to be clean.”

By Katylee Strange

picture from NSWMA website

In April 2010 Jamaica’s National Solid Waste Management Authority (NSWMA) launched their campaign to increase revenue-generating initiatives to help decrease Jamaica’s overall solid waste. The campaign used local event to help promote its ideas of its “cool to be clean” by participating in the Bacchanal Jamaica road march on April 11, and the Jamaica Cultural Development Commission's Independence Float Parade.

After The campaign included promoting aspects of the National Solid Waste Management Act that was passed in 2001. With the help of the act the country is working to safeguard the public health and ensure that the waste is collected, transported, recycled, reused or disposed of in a way that is environmentally sound. The act created an Authority that would help regulate the waste management in Jamaica. The Authority would help convert dumps into landfills, design and designate new landfills, provide collectors of solid waste, and create other guidelines relating to solid waste management. Those are just a few of the many things the Authority does to regulate solid waste in Jamaica.

The Sustainable Development and Regional Planning Division Planning Institute of Jamaica conducted research in 2007 to determine the effectiveness of their current solid waste disposal plan. The country realized something needed to be done about their solid waste management efforts. The article “Management of Hazardous & Solid Waste in Jamaica” shows the connection between economic activity and volume of waste produced. NSWMA decided to launch the campaign in order to reduce the hazards of solid waste. The National Solid Waste Management Authority’s mission statement is to “efficient and effective collection, disposal and management of solid waste while promoting change through public education.”

The NSWMA website allows people to learn about what the mission statement and goals of NSWMA as well as the work that has been done in the past that transformed dumps into usable and environmentally friendly landfills. The website also contains a collection schedule that people in Jamaica can look up when solid waste collection will occur in their region. There are also fun ways for children to get involved on the website in the “Fun for Kids” section.

Overall the campaign is a way a new way to promote an environmentally safe way of disposing solid waste in a country that has not known for sanitation and waste management in the past, Jamaica. Jamaica is a small country that cannot afford to overlook sanitation disposal of the 2,825,928 people’s solid waste that live on the 10,991 sq km island.

For more information about National Solid Waste Management Authority and their efforts to make Jamaica a more sanitary country visit http://www.nswma.gov.jm/.