BURNING GARBAGE

“Why not recycle or use landfills?”

With the exquisite scenery of the Northern range just a few meters away and the usual peace and quiet of this community is the disturbing sight of garbage being burnt. This was the sight in the rural community of Valencia, located to the east of Trinidad.

Burning garbage results in air pollution and the effects of burning are devastating to the environment and to health. When garbage is burnt it releases hazardous chemicals such as dioxins, benzopyrene (BAP) and other polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). Since smoke stays low when burnt without using incinerators, these chemicals remain in the atmosphere and can be easily inhaled. The burning of garbage can lead to chronic diseases such as cancer, bronchitis and emphysema. Other symptoms include nausea, fatigue and dizziness.

In many rural areas, burning garbage is viewed a normal method of disposing waste. It is of my opinion that one of the reasons to explain this is that fact the issues such as waste disposal is of greater concern in urban areas simply because it occurs on a larger scale. As such, more time, money and technology is spent in urban areas on disposing waste and educating the public in these areas about the effects of burning garbage. In many rural areas in Trinidad as well as other countries around the world, rural areas are sometime inaccessible, or somewhat difficult to access. In most cases rural areas are neglected in favor of developing the urban areas, maintaining the physical structure of these areas and dealing with the problems that occur there instead of consulting issues such as the need for proper infrastructure in rural areas such as proper roads. As a result of the infrequent service of waste disposal units to rural areas people in these communities take it upon themselves to dispose of their waste. One such way of doing this is by burning, an activity which is done and in most cases the effects of such activity is unknown because of lack of knowledge.