Composting catching on as clean, green Guyana campaign picks up

 

compostingGeorgetown: Residents of Mocha Arcadia and Marfriends Cooperative Society inFriendship, were able to recently reap the rewards of their labour under the community composting project being carried out by the Clean Green Guyana Campaign.  This initiative is part of the Community Participation and Public Awareness Programme being administered by the Ministry of Local Government and Regional Development and funded by the Inter-American Development Bank.

Composting may be described as nature’s way of recycling.  It is a process in which organic waste, or waste derived from living things—such as leaves, yard trimmings and kitchen waste like vegetable skins, among other things–is broken down or biodegraded by micro-organisms into compost, a substance that resembles a dark-coloured soil.  Compost is a rich soil-enhancer thatcan be applied to the soil to add the nutrients that may encourage healthy plant growth.

As organic waste constitutes roughly about half of the waste produced by a typical household in Guyana, by choosing to compost their household organic waste, citizens can effectively reduce the amount of waste collected from their households and disposed of in the Haags Bosch Sanitary Landfill.

Participating residents were happy to engage in an activity that was good for the environment and entire community and have already put the compost they produced to good use in their kitchen gardens.  Many residents will now work with the Clean Green Guyana Campaign to start composting in their own backyards.  In this new phase, the Clean Green Guyana Campaign will supply interested residents with composting structures in which residents will compost their organic waste.

The Clean Green Guyana Campaign is also about to commence a similar community composting project in various communities within the La Reconnaissance-Mon Repos NDC (Neighbourhood Democratic Council).