Dear Editor,

This is an open letter to Minister of Commerce, Trade and Industry Dr Christopher Tufton.

I had previously proposed that the National Solid Waste Management Authority (NSWMA) be made the sole authorised exporter of the island’s scrap metal some two or more years ago, and suggested that a processing facility be established somewhere in the Riverton City Dump which would form the nexus of this activity. Later, I heard of plans to establish same and heard on the news that these plans were put on hold because NEPA had objected to the use of this site for that purpose. In light of the recent upsurge in destruction attributed to the scrap metal trade, I urge you to reconsider my proposal.

My plan in brief would have the agency being the sole authorised exporter of all scrap metal leaving the island. They would be the middle-men, paying scrap-metal dealers some reasonable part of the sale price of the metals exported. This would help to fund that agency and because no scrap could be exported by anyone else, the industry would be regulated and the island derive the full benefit of that trade without the criminality and wanton destruction of the country’s infrastructure that is a characteristic of the current trade. All inspection would take place and all shipment done at the one point. No need for complex logistics to support multiple inspection points. Unscrupulous dealers

could be easily identified and dealt with, and details of the economic dealings of these people who contribute so much to the destruction of our nation without contributing much to the revenue needed to rebuild it could easily be collated.

It goes without saying that those people already living and scavenging in the dump should be accommodated in this plan, as they would recover very small metallic items that would escape the bigger scavengers and thus earn a little more.

Please revisit this plan and find out the specific reasons for the blocking of this proposal. Why can’t a scrap metal facility be sited at the city dump? What possible contamination is going to be added to ground already heavily contaminated because of that same organisation’s failure to develop and implement a hazardous waste disposal policy?

Could this same organisation, which is overseeing a hazardous material leak at a gold mine in Clarendon and telling the residents there not to worry be trusted to say that it is hazardous to simply sort and pack metals for shipment at a city dump which has already been heavily contaminated by years of abuse? Please remember that scores of both

legal and unregistered dealers have mini dumps cited all over the island, both in residential and enviromentally sensitive areas without NEPA seeming able to bring even one to book for breaches.

By the way, gold extraction from ore is most commonly done through the use of cyanide or arsenic, or both. The two are very toxic to all life. So containing the leak by cordoning off the area and allowing the recent rains to pass these chemicals into the water table of the area is a recipe for disaster. Weren’t the first signs of trouble in the area the sighting of dead marine/terrestrial life?

In light of this most recent display of ineptitude from this near completely ineffective organisation, (not my opinion only), please rethink the plan I had previously proposed unless they can publish a very soundly reasoned basis not to have the proposed facility based at a city dump.

Clarence Villiers

daddyvil1956@operamail.com