Volunteering Opportunity in Luganville, Vanuatu

After a year in Luganville, Vanuatu on the waste management assignment with Volunteer Service Abroad I am now back at work in Auckland with GHD. The next phase of the project is an assignment for a Geo-Environmental Engineer/Scientist / Geotechnical Engineer which is now being advertised. Check out the link below for more details and please share with anyone within your network that you think might be interested in taking part. Its a great opportunity.

http://www.vsa.org.nz/what-you-can-do/volunteer-overseas-hub/volunteer-overseas/geo-environmental-engineer/

Holiday Update

I was supposed to update this blog by the end of July with a final report on the Vanuatu Assignment but a holiday in Ireland got in the way. I'll write the report when I get back to Auckland and post it in August.

The Assignment Ends.

Mary O'Reilly, myself, Gina Tari Buletare and Ryoma Masuda putting on brave faces. 

Is it a gate? Is it a fence? Is it abstract art?!

I had asked the carpenter to build stuff for me before and his work quality was excellent. What happened with this fence left me at a loss for words. I didn't bother questioning him. There must be a reason.

Article for Waste Management Trade Magazine

Vanuatu seeks waste management assistance from NZ organizations.

Are you keen to help your Pacific neighbours sort out their waste problems?

Through Volunteer Service Abroad (VSA), two New Zealand waste management volunteers have been working with the Luganville Municipal Council in Espiritu Santo, Vanuatu to help improve the Municipals waste management planning, waste collection and waste disposal practices.  Sean Toland from GHD’s Auckland Office started in 2013 and Mary O’Reilly, previously at Christchurch City Council, started in 2011.

To date they have been very successful. The Samna Province and Luganville Municipality Waste Management Plan 2013-2016 was adopted and a Memorandum of Understanding was signed to promote cooperation between the Province and the Municipality on the provision of waste management services beyond the municipal boundary. A number of recycling initiatives have been introduced and major improvements in the operation and management of the open dump site have been put in place.

The next phase of the project is selecting a suitable site for a new landfill and developing a means to fund the design and construction phases, as well as closing the open dump site. The current site is very close to the airport and a runway extension planned for 2017 will increase its proximity.

This is where we would like to put a call out to any companies or professionals that may be interested in partnering with VSA and Luganville Municipal Council to assist them through this next important stage in their waste management planning.

There are a number of ways the partnership could work, but the initial focus will be on locating a site and conducting a site investigation which will require someone with Geotechnical / Environmental experience. The design and construction phase may require a full time Waste Management Engineer and of course any sort of financial support or dollar for dollar partnership would ensure that this project gets off the ground and is completed within a reasonable timeframe. Of course, reasonable timeframes are relative when it comes to working in Vanuatu!

If any of this appeals to you or you know of anyone who may be an ideal candidate for this, please get in touch with Sean: sean.toland@ghd.com or Mary maryeoreilly@gmail.com.

For more information on volunteering with VSA visit www.vsa.org.nz

For more information on progress of this project visit Facebook: Luganville Waste Management.

Sometimes Perfection is Worth the Wait.

I had a grand old time fighting with a radio station this last couple of weeks. Over two weeks ago we asked them to produce three ads for us to air for three consecutive months. The three ads were public information campaigns for;

1. Illegal burning of rubbish

2. Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

3. Composting garden waste.

Our logo, Tito the Green Gecko, features in these ads. We finally got versions of ads that we had to make do with yesterday and they are playing the wrong ad today.

We have had them produce 2 ads previously for us and that was also a difficult process mainly because they never read their emails properly and don't follow instructions at all.

So with the three new ads we thought that given they did the previous ads it would be easy to reproduce the same sound and feel as the old ads. We wanted consistency and familiarity in our message delivery. 

In the first batch of ads we had asked that a well known DJ do the vocals as he is quite hi nrg, speaks numerous languages and seemed intelligent. We made the same request this time around, thinking that a familiar, friendly voice would do the trick.

So we thought we had him on the first 2 ads and they were exactly as I had imagined them and they were pretty perfect as far as I was concerned. Great background music, gecko vocal fx in the correct places, message spoken with the correct tone of voice and it was pretty damn good and sounded quite exciting stuff, despite it being waste management. 

At the same time, it took a long time to reach this perfection because they were nightmare people to deal with. But the perfection was worth the wait.

So I sent them the instructions this time around with the scripts, the gecko vocals, specs on music and vocals and sound effects and everything they needed so that it would be a simple process. Simple it was not.

The first versions came through and it was the exact opposite to what we asked for;

1. The music was funeral dirge quality, like a horrible version of Joy Division, like an especially turgid episode of Grays Anatomy. It was very traumatizing to listen to. 

2. The mix was murky, like a shipwreck at the bottom of the muddy sea.

3. The vocals were of 2 people, of a man and a woman. The woman was hesitant and sounding unsure of herself. Like this was the first time she had read the script, or the concepts were entirely new to her. They probably were. They sounded like bored university students, like something from the Open University or a dull Radio 2 broadcast. These ads were not going to encourage people into thinking positively about Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, etc. It was gonna put the frighteners on people listening and ensure that we would be hated forever for ruining their days by nagging at them about how they should live their lives.

4. Worst of all it was really boring. 

So I had a bit of a complain to them via email because they never answer their phones, despite numerous calls and requests to return calls. So they tried again, but the DJ started delegating work to another producer/station manager. Apparently they were very busy. I was sure they were only busy because of incompetence.

The second version eventually came around and still the ads were completely off kilter. I cant remember what was wrong. It was a slight improvement but still they were using the wrong music and some of the script wasn't followed correctly.

I was getting desperate at this stage. I knew what I wanted but was not getting it. I was considering scrapping the ad campaign as it seemed like too much trouble, but it was a great way of getting the message out. It seemed very simple to me but the boys were not listening. 

If only I had the skills. If only I had a recording studio. If only I was in Port Vila I could sit in the studio with them. If only.....

I decided that desperate tactics were required. I wrote an email to the DJ and massaged his ego. I told him the reason we wanted his vocals on the ad was that he sounded great and he was the best and the previous ads were brilliant work and would he please hurry up because we wanted to hear his brilliant work again. I cc'd in his station manager as well. How low can one go to get what they want?

Later on I tried calling again and got speaking to the station manager. The station manager sounded like a clone of the DJ. The Station Manager confessed to being confused. The original ads were not the vocals of the DJ, but of the station manager, and did I really want the DJ to voice the ads? I was now quite confused and in a quandary (Hmm. I didn't know quandry was spelled like that). I had just polished someone's ego for no good reason. I told him I was confused and would ring back and told him that the original request for the first 2 ads were for the DJ to vocalise and why wasn't instructions followed?

I got over the confusion quickly and tried again. This time berating them halfheartedly, using office speak and offending myself entirely in the process. 

They tried again but it turned out that the IT dept had swept through like some evil bird of prey and deleted the music file I requested from the station computer. I told them I didn't care now and could they use music that sounded similar and how hard can it be?

Eventually after 15 days into a job that should have taken an hour and a half the 3 ads swung their way into my mail box with only minor technicalities affecting them, but not enough for me to want to go back to asking them to redo them. The ads sounded excellent apart from the fact you could hear a woman whisper something at the start of them all, an occasional wrong word used, the music slightly too high in the mix (the correct music too! With a seriously propulsive bassline which I hadn't noticed before.) and a mix that was fairly shoddy, sounding like it was spliced with a battle axe.

We had a listen and decided that the music was slightly too high so we managed to get that changed in super quick time.

We then asked for the ad campaign to start. One ad to air this month, and the other two to air in the following months. Naturally, this morning I listened to the radio to make sure they got the right ad on. Naturally, they got the wrong ad playing. Cue, the circus continues. Sometimes perfection is worth the wait.

Hilarious. And this isn't even half the story. 

Land Diving, The Island of Pentecost, Vanuatu, 26/4/14

HUP!

ARGH!!!! Who tied the rope?!

Pretty Cool, huh?

NEXT!!!!!

Tito the Green Gecko joins the Luganville Waste Management Team

On 17th March 2014 the Luganville Waste Management team launched their new waste management logo. Tito the green gecko is our new mascot and he will be helping us spread our waste management message around town through national radio, the newspapers, facebook, the churches and the waste collection trucks. With the radio campaign it is hoped that the message will eventually come to be adopted nationwide. Tito's name comes from the rearranged letters of the word 'toti', which is the Bislama word for rubbish. We don't think Tito is rubbish, but he knows his rubbish and wants to tell people all about it. 

Tito sits in the middle of a Mobius strip, the internationally known symbol of recycling, and his main message is 'Mekem Stret' which is Bislama for Do the right thing. There are then 5 different messages we are trying to get across which are shown in the graphics below.  The concept of reuse, reduce and recycle is not well known in Vanuatu so we are attempting to introduce that in the campaign.

The radio campaign consists of 2 ads with the main message of reduce, reuse, recycle and a liberal dose of gecko vocalisations interspersed at the beginning middle and end of the ads. The common house gecko of Vanuatu has a distinctive chirping sound and we managed to track down a recording of it from a university database in the States, for which they waived the $30 fee to use. You can hear the common house gecko vocalising regularly during the day as they rest on walls and hide in nooks. The idea behind using the call of the gecko on the ad was to provide a trigger for people to think about waste management every time they heard the sound, outside of the radio ad. Pavlovian, but with humans and geckos. 

Tito the Green Gecko

Mekem Stret - Put your rubbish in the right place.

Mekem Stret - Reduce

Mekem Stret - Reuse

Mekem Stret - Recycle

Mekem Stret - Compost organic waste

Luganville Waste Management - Non-Technical Progress Summary - January 2014

The Waste Disposal Site

The Luganville Waste Disposal Site is located 6km from the centre of town and is within 2km of the end of the runway at Pekoa Airport. It has been in operation as an open dump since the end of WWII when the Americans opened it up as a coral limestone quarry.

Since the end of the war, the waste disposal site has been operating in much the same way over the years. There has been no method of waste control on site and management has been generally haphazard. The waste is placed in the former pit floor of the coral quarry and burned. The material that didn't burn was bulldozed to the sides on a yearly basis and the process started again. Burning of waste was seen as the primary waste management tool at the site. It generally operated as a burning pile of waste with occasional bulldozing to make more room.

There was inadequate signage at the site, the site office was dilapidated, the gatekeeper was not trained, poor payment of waste disposal costs, the waste disposal pit was mainly inaccessible, there were constant fires around the site, the entrance to the pit was badly rutted, there was poor timekeeping with regards opening hours which resulted in waste being dumped at the gate and the place had no operating guidelines for site users or employees to follow.

It was obvious that, from the beginning of the project, there was no basic knowledge of any waste management strategies at the waste disposal site and that we would have to go back to basics. It was realised that there was no point moving on from this site until site users and those employed there became familiar with the basics of good management at a waste disposal facility. There was a need to use this site as a waste management training ground before we could move on and open an engineered landfill.

Issues surrounding the airport.

The main issue surrounding the airport and the waste disposal site is likely the smoke that results from the fires that occasionally burn onsite. This issue is currently being addressed and has been significantly reduced. Ideally landfills shouldn’t be in the direct line of fire of airport runways anyway, but this one is. There is some concern about the threat of birdstrike, but given than there are no crows or seagulls in Vanuatu this is probably a small threat.

The waste disposal site is on the direct flight path of the local airport.

Signage at the waste disposal site.

In June there was a need to upgrade the signage at the waste disposal site. There was a need to cut down on mixed messages at the site entrance related to the cost of disposal of waste and opening hours specifically. There was also a need to supplement the signage with guidelines on how site users were expected to behave onsite so that site activities could be managed better.

There was a total of 7 new signs to be painted and erected onsite to detail new site guidelines associated with various areas of the site as follows;

1. Two Site Entrance Signs detailing opening hours and new waste disposal costs.

2. One Site Entrance Sign detailing no waste burning policy on site in pictures and words.

3. One Site Office Sign showing the aerial site plan, showing where to dump waste.

4. One Site Office Sign detailing five main site guidelines.

5. One Sign showing where the recycling area is located.

6. One Waste Pit Entrance Sign showing where to dump the waste.

Signage at the waste disposal site.

The Site Office.

Along with the site signage the gatekeepers hut at the waste disposal site was upgraded in keeping with the site improvements taking place. It was decided that there was a need to create a better impression on arrival onsite and that the hut played a part in that. It was seen as a psychological exercise so that site users would see that we were improving our operation and that we were taking the waste disposal site more seriously. This psychological boost was also for the benefit of the gatekeeper as well.

The site office is now looking much more respectable and creates a much more positive image for site users when entering the site compared with before.

Jack is pretty happy with his new site office.

Waste Disposal Site Opening Hours.

In June 2013 the site entrance sign indicated that the site was opened 7 days a week from 0730am to 4pm. This did not occur in practise. The more likely scenario was 5.5 days a week with variable opening hours. This meant that it was quite likely that the site would not be open until 9am some mornings and would be closed at 3pm when the last waste load was deposited onsite by the council waste truck and the site gatekeeper got a lift back into town.

Since the new opening hours were implemented there have been fewer complaints from the public with regards shoddy opening hours due to the absence of the gatekeeper. The problem with illegal dumping at the site entrance has also been eliminated. The site is now manned during public holidays with the gatekeeper being replaced the next working day with someone else. There are still issues with the gatekeeper leaving site early with the waste disposal truck but this is slowly being eliminated.

Luganville Waste Disposal Site Weekly Traffic.

Waste traffic at the site is now monitored as part of site records. These records separate public vehicles and council vehicles depositing waste. It was felt that it was important to get a grip on site traffic for future waste management plans. Generally speaking the council truck drops on average of 30 loads of waste at the site each week and there are, on average, 33 private vehicles entering the site a week. Generally speaking these figures have remained steady since records began in July but dropped significantly around the Christmas holiday period when the waste disposal truck broke down for 2 weeks.

Cost of Disposal of Waste

In June 2013 the cost of disposal of waste at the waste disposal site was 1,250VT per large truck load and 650VT for a small truck load. A large truck was defined as anything larger than a pickup truck and a small truck was defined as anything in size up to and including a pickup truck. Eventually we would like to invest in a weighbridge but that seems like a pipe dream at present.

After some discussion it was concluded that the new waste disposal costs would be as follows;

1. 600VT Small waste load.

2. 1,200VT Pickup Truck.

3. 1,800VT Flatbed Truck.

These new waste disposal costs meant that we were effectively doubling waste disposal costs in Luganville.

Previous to June 2013 the previous year’s income at the waste disposal site was something in the region of 500,000VT. After the introduction of better waste income control and increased waste disposal costs the income projected for the coming year from the waste disposal site is expected to be in the region of 2 – 3,000,000VT.

Municipal Waste Management Account

In July 2013 better record keeping at the Luganville Waste Disposal Site meant that LMC were better equipped to keep track of income generated. This meant that there was an opportunity to better manage the income from the site and to invoice debtors as well. The increase in waste disposal costs at the waste disposal site in October 2013 also highlighted the need for better tracking of income as a result of the extra funds being generated. Other waste management income is generated from the business house collection fee and other initiatives.

The waste management account allows the Municipal to manage funds generated from waste management activities so that income from waste can be reinvested in waste management activities and infrastructure onsite and around Luganville. In the past there has been poor control of income at the Municipal which has led to a lack of transparency in expenditure. Guidelines were written for the operation of the waste management account so that there were clear rules as to who had access to the waste management funds.

The waste management team will be discouraging misuse of waste management funds through a process of naming and shaming and publishing account summaries in the national newspaper.

Waste Disposal Site Gatekeeper

The gatekeeper at the Luganville Waste Disposal Site is a man called Jack. Previous to June 2013 he had responsibility for taking money onsite for waste disposal costs and for opening and closing the site. He kept a basic waste record at the site which was handed into the Municipal accounts section at the end of each day along with the takings. These were the extent of his responsibilities.

Of all the people trained up in waste management in Luganville Municipality it is probably Jack that has made the biggest difference in the day to day site operations. He is limited in what he can do due to his physical fitness as there is much more that he could be doing onsite. He has overseen changes such as the introduction of the new opening hours, new waste disposal costs, the total fire ban as well as instructing people where to dump their waste. His excellent money handling and record keeping skills means that there is very little confusion with regards basic accounting onsite and makes it easier to keep track of income and debtors.

In 2014 it may become necessary to employ a part time site worker to perform tasks that Jack is unable to undertake. These tasks include taking the public into the waste pit to show where to dump their waste, picking windblown litter in the surrounding property, onsite maintenance of site entrance and other tasks as required.

Waste Disposal Site Clearance

In the past the waste at the site was cleared once a year. An expat contractor was employed on a yearly basis to bulldoze the waste onsite and had been responsible for this for the previous 10 years. This meant that over a yearly period the waste was disposed onsite in a haphazard manner wherever people found space. This meant that the space in the actual waste pit was not utilized efficiently and became inaccessible within months after bulldozing. The area surrounding the pit was then utilised for dumping and this continued until the site became completely inaccessible.

This was the situation in June 2013 when all access roads within the site were blocked by waste, some of it smouldering, and had reached within 10m of the site office. It was only a matter of time before waste would be dumped at the site office and waste was being disposed at the site entrance as well. It had been some time since the site had been cleared and it was obvious that better onsite waste management practises were required.

A site plan for waste clearance will eventually include compaction as well. Compaction of waste has not occurred in the past due to a lack of budget, a lack of equipment onsite and also due to the fact that burning of waste was considered to be an acceptable form of waste management. The existing waste at the site has not been properly managed from the perspective of efficient use of space. This may need to change in 2014 where the budget for site clearance will take into account compaction of current waste combined with the reworking of historical waste areas on site.

Clearing the site occurs much more often now, keeping the site better managed.

The Total Fire Ban Onsite.

One of the most common methods of household waste management in Vanuatu is burning of waste in peoples gardens. It is an ingrained habit and one that will be difficult to break. This has become a problem in recent times given that the inorganic waste being burned is more toxic compared to a time when most of the waste was organic in nature and generally less toxic when burned.

It was imperative that the practise of burning of waste at the waste disposal site was strongly discouraged by the Municipal and a plan of action was developed. The gatekeeper was instructed to inform all site users that the burning of waste onsite was now strongly discouraged. The municipal waste disposal workers were also instructed not to set fire to the waste that they deposited at the site and this message was repeated to them until they ceased burning. Newspaper articles were published to advertise the new management practises being undertaken onsite and included mention of the total fire ban. In September a flyer was developed for the site gatekeeper to hand out to site users which included a section on the fire ban.

It was recognised by the waste management team that the practise of burning waste onsite was sufficiently serious enough to merit a large focus on our weekly waste management activities there. It was important to defeat the waste burning mindset onsite before any meaningful waste management progress could be made. Site signage was developed with a focus on the no burning message and the first of these signs were erected at the site entrance prior to the October 1^st deadline. At the start of October a radio advertisement campaign that ran until the end of November included the no burning message. The message was simple, clear and repetitive and the media campaign was extensive.

It was quite difficult to stop the habit of burning waste at the waste disposal site.

Waste Management Media Campaign

At the commencement of the project, it was important to keep the public informed of what was being planned from a waste management perspective in Luganville. Modern methods of waste management in Luganville are not understood and basic services are poor by western standards. The objectives of the project required that a new site be investigated for the purposes of constructing an engineered landfill site as well as improving the management of the current waste disposal site with the aim of eventually closing, capping and remediating it when the new site became operational.

These objectives were all very well but with no local knowledge of waste management in Luganville these were unlikely to be understood. The current waste disposal site was not competently organised or operated and waste management services operated by the Municipal in general followed a similar pattern. It was realised that if a site were to be located and an engineered waste disposal facility operated from there with the current local skills base, then the only skills transferred to the new site would be the same skills that were currently running the existing site into the ground. It was therefore concluded that the best way to progress was to improve the waste management skills base by using the current waste disposal site as a training ground for both site users and municipal workers.

For the public to achieve better knowledge of modern waste management practises it was decided that there was a need for a consistent message to be delivered regularly via the media. There are 3 main newspapers published in Vanuatu; The Daily Post, The Vanuatu Times and The Independent. The Daily Post was utilised the most for publishing stories and public notices on waste management activities in Luganville. The Vanuatu Times was utilised for publishing stories and public notices in Bislama.

A Luganville Waste Management Facebook page was set up in July and heavily promoted. This page allowed us to share ideas, news and events about waste management activities in Luganville to familiarise people with the new concepts and is regularly updated with photos and published news stories. This page plays an important part in disseminating waste management news and ideas in Luganville and around Vanuatu and has highlighted Luganville waste management activities in the national context bringing some pride to Luganville Municipality.

A radio campaign commenced in October on Radio Vanuatu communicating the changes taking place with regards waste management in Luganville. On October 1st new policies were put in place to improve how the site operated. These included new opening hours, new waste disposal costs, a no burning policy. The radio campaign consisted of public notice advertisements on heavy rotation all day so that listeners could be educated on the new policies.

Waste Management Branding Campaign

A waste management branding campaign will start in early 2014. As waste management is virtually an unknown concept in Luganville this campaign is aimed to help us achieve better understanding of the concept there. This will focus on 3 main areas;

1.     General waste management

2.     Introducing reduce, reuse, recycle

3.     Composting

A logo has been designed incorporating the recycling arrows with a Gecko in the middle to signify the local interest angle. The gecko will be useful for schoolchildren and education and will have some kind of personality. This will be used in all correspondence and advertising with regards waste management.

The plan is to introduce this through a media campaign involving the radio and newspapers. A radio ad is planned which will link the vocalisation that a Gecko makes with waste management. This will mean that when you hear the gecko call it will remind you of waste management. Common House Geckos are found in Luganville and can be found inside houses and have a distinctive vocalisation.

Site Selection for Proposed New Landfill Site.

The current Luganville waste disposal site is to be replaced. The current site has an probable lifespan of another 10 years if managed well.

In June 2013 the Municipal had arranged that there were 3 potential sites to be investigated for the suitability for the construction of a Landfill. Unfortunately these sites were close to the current site and therefore unsuitable due to proximity to the airport.

In general the site selection process has been put on hold due to other waste management issues in Luganville taking precedence and the need to instil good waste management practises at the waste disposal site and around Luganville. This will reduce the likelihood of poor waste management practises occurring when the new site opens.

It is planned that, in early 2014, there will be more focus than before on locating a suitable site for landfill purposes. A landowner has indicated that a 32 acre site may be available to investigate and a meeting will be set up in February. Two other landowners have indicated that they would be open to talks in the New Year as well.

Geological limitations of site selection process.

The main limitation of the current site selection process is the lack of suitable land close to Luganville. The geology of South Santo is to a large extent limestone/coral based and therefore difficult with regards constructing a landfill site. This may be the only choice of land there is, close enough to Luganville to construct a new site.

There is some potential for clay deposits being available locally for import to any suitable site. These have yet to be investigated. The importing of clay for the purposes of clay lining the proposed new landfill site will be an expensive operation but necessary given the porous nature of the coral.

These clay deposits will also be suitable for capping the current site when closure occurs.

Geosynthetic clay liners may be considered if the local clay source proves unsuitable. These GCLs may prove cheaper to import than importing clay from a borrow source, due to the expense of fuel locally.

Drilling Programmes

Drilling has occurred in Luganville in the past but borehole records were lost in a fire at the Dept of Lands. Reports suggest that there are some boreholes located close to the current waste disposal site but it is proving difficult to find anyone willing to show the Municipality where these are.

No drilling companies exist in Santo so drill rigs must be shipped from Port Vila. There is only one drilling company in Vanuatu. A quote was received from this company for a typical site investigation including drilling and installing wells to 30m. The total cost would be projected at about 5-6m vatu.

Intermediate Covering of Waste.

The fresh waste body on site is exposed to the elements. The older waste body is covered in vegetation and somewhat controlled. Daily or intermediate covering of waste does not happen at the waste disposal site due to the municipal financial issues and a lack of machinery available.

It is hoped that in 2014 intermediate covering of waste will take place when the bulldozer visits the site and manages the waste better every 3 months or so. There is a good supply of coral available to be excavated from the site and this would provide an ideal cover material for the newly organised and compacted waste. This would improve the management of the site to a great extent.

The utilisation of coral as an intermediate cover is only limited by the lack of machinery and a lack of funding at the Municipal. We have the material available close to hand and by using it we are also managing the space at the site more efficiently. It makes sense to better control the site in this manner to improve its appearance and operation. Efficient excavation and utilisation of the material will save money in the long term at the site.

Municipal Equipment at the Waste Disposal Site.

The Luganville Municipality do not own or run any equipment at the waste disposal site. They do operate 2 waste disposal trucks as specified earlier. The municipal hires a bulldozer from a local contractor on a more regular basis than before but has difficulty in paying him for the service and he is paid by reducing any property tax he owes to the Municipal.

It is hoped that as the project goes on, coral from the site can be utilised as cover material for the waste as well as to improve access roads to the site. This kind of maintenance will be cheaper to undertake if the Municipal has the machinery to undertake the work.

Climate

The climate in Luganville is tropical. There is at approximately 3,500mm of rain each year recorded at the weather station at Pekoa Airport weather station approximately 2-3km away. This is a significant amount of rain and therefore would generate a significant amount of leachate at the site as it passes through the body of waste. The site is located in a quarry of very porous coral limestone and leachate has been freely generated for the past 75 years, likely creating a large plume of contamination of the local groundwater body.

During the rainy season between January and April enough rain will be generated to likely hamper activities in the waste disposal site as well as future works regarding the construction and operation of an engineered landfill, see table below. This consideration will need to be taken into account well in advance and appropriate plans put in place with regards site activities.

 

Municipal Waste Disposal Trucks.

Luganville Municipal operates 2 waste disposal trucks in the town. It has one compactor truck with a capacity of approximately 6 tons and a small cage truck with a capacity of 1.2tons. The compactor truck was donated on behalf of the Japanese government aid programme in 2007 and the cage truck was gifted to Luganville Municipal Council by Port Vila Municipal Council at the start of 2013.

Currently the compactor truck is out of commission and has been for the past 7 months. There is a problem with the electrical wiring that controls the compaction mechanism at the back of the truck and there is currently no one locally with the capacity to repair the vehicle. Part of the problem possibly stems from the fact that the machine is Japanese made and instructions are in Japanese. We have requested a translation of instructions from various sources in Japan.

There is a need to expand the waste collection fleet in line with the expansion of the town. The waste management team estimate that a new waste collection truck will need to be purchased and in operation by mid-2014 at the latest with another truck added to the fleet by early 2015.

Since July the kilometres have been recorded on the cage truck as well to monitor the utilisation of the truck on the waste disposal route. Roughly speaking the waste truck makes an average of 30 journeys to the waste disposal site each week. On busy weeks there can be up to 36 loads of waste delivered to the site. The average km travelled on the waste route alone on a weekly basis is approximately 500km and this sometimes exceeds 650km per week.

Weekly waste loads to site, public and council.

Of the average 30 journeys to site each week by the waste disposal truck the following can be said about the waste content;

1.     Each Friday there is a cardboard packaging collection in Luganville. This generates 2 cage loads of waste which is the approximate equivalent of 700kg of cardboard.

2.     The Municipal Market generates on average 6.5 cage loads or 8tons of green waste each week from fruit and vegetable material.

3.     The remaining waste is general municipal waste and each load weighs approximately 1.2 tons. Municipal waste accounts for an average of 22 tons per week.

In December an attempted was made to characterise the weight of a week of waste loads at the weighbridge of a local business. The plan was to weigh every load of waste from Monday to Friday on a typical week and take note of the 3 main types of waste carried and average the loads. The study took place and some good information was obtained on the weight of waste loads.

An agreement was reached recently with Vanuatu Agricultural College to divert organic market waste generated by the Municipal Market from the waste disposal site to the college. The initial plan is to feed their pigs with this material and start a composting facility there as well.

A new waste disposal truck was purchased over Christmas.

Luganville Waste Disposal Employees.

The men employed to collect the waste in Luganville have very limited resources available to them to make the waste collection successful. The service has been running at short capacity since July with the loss of the waste compactor truck with a electrical fault. The waste collection service is generally takes place six days a week between the hours on 0730 and 1430hrs and a Sunday service operates during busy periods.

From a health and safety perspective the waste collection service has been running at full capacity for too long now since the compactor truck has been out of commission. It is an issue that has been raised but is not taken seriously by the Municipal. Eventually when the waste collection system is in better working order there will be a limited number of hours per week that the waste disposal employees will be working. 

Closure, capping, and remediation of waste disposal site.

The eventual closure of the current waste disposal site is perhaps 10 years off. Due to the extremely limited budget generally available for waste management in Luganville remediation of the site will likely be very limited.

It is unlikely that the budget will be available to form any kind of clay liner at the site even though there is an uncontrolled leachate situation there. However due to the heavy annual rainfall an efficient capping system should be considered to reduce the leachate generation at the site. A basic system of a coral sub base covered with a clay liner might eventually be considered. A good drainage system on the capping would divert water from ponding or entering the waste body to form more leachate.

Illegal Dumping issues

Illegal dumping or fly tipping along the side of the road is a major issue in and around Luganville. There are 2 main fly tipping areas around town at Beleru and Fanafo Roads. There was concern that illegal dumping activities would increase once the waste disposal costs were increased. This does not seem to have occurred because site traffic has not appreciably decreased over the period since the increased costs were introduced and remains an average of 36 loads of waste from the public each week.

An illegal dumping strategy began to be developed by the Municipal waste management team in August. Illegal dumping signs were designed and the message was kept simple. See photo below. More signs will be developed and placed along the river in the New Year.



Some creative sign posting.

In December the municipal organised a cleanup day at Fanafo Road to clear up the illegally deposited waste. It was a successful day and 8 tons of waste was cleared from the side of the road.

Clean up day for illegally dumped waste.

Waste Management By Law - Gazetted

A new waste management by law was written to update the previous by law which was inadequate from a modern waste management practises perspective. This was gazetted into law in October 2013.

Waste Characterisation Study

A waste characterisation study was undertaken in July to update waste data character in Luganville. The previous study was undertaken in 2012 and results were similar.

Picking up the waste for the Waste Characterisation Study

Scavengers at the waste disposal site.
Scavengers are present at the waste disposal site on a daily basis. They mainly scavenge aluminium cans which can be sold on to recycling companies, indeed the recycling company is present at the site often and may even have employees going through the waste in search of recyclables. Scavengers wear no protection from cuts or infections as they go through the waste often in shorts, t shirts and sandals. There are approximately 7 scavengers that visit the site on a regular basis.

Waste Disposal Site Access

Access to the waste disposal site is limited to people who use the site for waste disposal and site improvement purposes.

There has been an incident recently where a contractor was asked to quote for some improvement works onsite but did not win the work. Two weeks after visiting the site he returned to the site and began excavating and exporting the coral onsite for his own purposes and profit. He did not have permission from the municipal or from the landowners. A court case is currently taking place with regards land ownership at the site and there are multiple claimants involved. One of the claimants threatened violence towards the contractor if he did not cease his activities. This did not deter the contractor who had to be ejected from the site.

This incident highlighted the need for tighter access controls onsite and for the municipal to start exerting its powers. It also highlighted the general lack of respect the general public had for the Municipal. It also highlights a health and safety concern with regards better controls that will be required in the current site and any future landfill site developed.

It is also important to have better control on site as the contractor took coral without informing or paying the Municipal. This material would have been better used at the site and it is important that we have better control of situations like these as we cannot afford to lose a resource like this.

Cardboard Recycling

Cardboard packaging recycling has been recently introduced as an initiative to highlight the issue of packaging waste in Luganville. Each Friday there is a business house cardboard packaging recycling pick up by the municipal waste truck. The businesses have been instructed to flatten their cardboard, tie it together and place it neatly for collection each Friday. Officially there is no waste collection on a Friday but once all of the cardboard is collected from around town the waste collection truck reverts to normal waste services. On an average Friday 2 cage truckloads of cardboard are collected which roughly weigh 1 tonne altogether.

Initially the cardboard was collected and deposited at the waste disposal pit along with the waste. This completely negated what was being attempted to achieve and highlighted the problem of assuming that local people understand basic concepts when it comes to waste management. The concept of recycling is a new experience from the local perspective.

A simple solution to this issue was required. The local timber mill was contacted and wooden stakes were donated from offcuts. The local supermarket supplied and delivered a flatbed truck of old wooden pallets. A cardboard recycling storage area was built onsite from these materials so that cardboard could be stored there separately from the main waste area.

Scrap metal recycling

At the waste disposal site there is an opportunity to start storing scrap metal for recycling. There is much scrap metal being dumped there on a weekly basis and this will provide an opportunity to the Municipal to gain an income from this resource.

In the new year an enclosure will be built alongside the cardboard storage area for the storage of scrap metal onsite. After this area is completed there will be a weekly site visit to locate any suitable material and place it in storage. We will then make contact with scrap metal merchants and recycling companies and sell the material to them.

Biosecurity and Quarantine Waste Management

Biosecurity Vanuatu collects biosecurity and quarantine waste as a result of port activities and deposit this material at the Luganville Waste Disposal Site for incineration.

There is poor control of this waste stream at the waste disposal site and plans are in place to better manage it in 2014. In the past Biosecurity burned this waste in a corner of the site in open ground. It was a case of lighting and leaving. This practise did not ensure that full incineration of biosecurity and quarantine waste occurred.

Biosecurity have an incinerator and LMC will make a space available at the waste disposal site to house this incinerator. A set of biosecurity and quarantine waste guidelines has been written so that Biosecurity Vanuatu can improve their incineration practises at the waste disposal site.

The space available onsite includes a pit for the disposal of ash from quarantine waste incineration. The Biosecurity incinerator will be located beside the pit and the area will be fenced off at the expense of Biosecurity. The guidelines provide for better management of incineration practises so that quarantine waste will be fully incinerated in a safe manner and that the incineration takes place away from the main waste pit.

These new guidelines are another step towards better waste management practises at the waste disposal site.

Hospital Waste Management

The Luganville Northern District Hospital operates a basic incinerator in its grounds for the purposes of incinerating hospital waste and body parts. It has recently requested the Municipal that they relocate the incinerator to the waste disposal site. Initially the municipal agreed to allow this but in the end due to the likelihood of poor controls on the part of the hospital the offer was withdrawn.  The no burning policy onsite also played a part.

The current location of the incinerator in the urban area is unsuitable but it is considered that it will bring too many issues to the waste disposal site and that we cannot guarantee public safety if hospital waste is incinerated at the site.

The hospital also deposits general hospital waste at the site and burns it. This practise has been discouraged since the introduction of new site guidelines regarding fires at the site.

Municipal Transport and Drivers

Generally speaking the Municipal Transport options are very limited due to the fact that the trucks are in use full time by employees and Municipal councillors. There is a booking system but this is totally ignored. If transport is required then it is necessary to be ready to drop everything as soon as the vehicle arrives at the office try to get access to it before someone else does. Sometimes the vehicle is available but the driver is not or vice versa which results in a lot of frustration.