Gov’t advances composting drive to reduce landfill emissions

Efforts to reduce methane emissions from Guyana’s landfills are progressing as the Ministry of Local Government and Regional Development on Tuesday commenced training for composting and organic waste recovery at the Haags Bosch Sanitary Landfill Site.

The three-day composting training programme is being conducted at the Recycle Organics facility there, bringing together waste and landfill operators, Neighbourhood Democratic Councils (NDCs), market and regional service providers. This new facility was established to promote recycling and composting.

For years, the region has relied heavily on landfilling, but with more than 50 percent of all waste generated being organic, this means half of what goes into the landfill could instead be composted, reused, or recovered.

Director of Sanitation Satrohan Nauth said the initiative is central to moving Guyana away from landfill-heavy disposal practices that contribute significantly to greenhouse gas emissions.

“Methane is one of the most harmful greenhouse gases and a lot of that comes from the decomposition of organic waste. Reducing methane emissions is the fastest way to address climate change in the short term that is what this project set out to achieve,” Nauth said.

He said large sums of money are injected into landfill waste but it is the ministry’s hope that this training is will help promote recycling and moving the country up the waste hierarchy.

“This training programme will be the basis where we’ll go around the country and have more compact training session with the different service providers and institutions responsible for waste management,” Nauth said.

Landfill capacity figures highlight the urgency for a nation-wide shift. According to Nauth, one 16-acre cell at Haags Bosch took ten years to fill and the next reached capacity in five years and a third is projected to last only four years. Each expansion consumes land and millions of dollars, while organic waste continues to emit methane.

This transition has a 10-acre recycling footprint dedicated to composting and material recovery, designed to divert organic waste before it reaches the landfill.

Since 2023, pilot projects have demonstrated the impact of composting. A Region Six home-composting initiative diverted nearly half of household organic waste from disposal, directly reducing methane generation.