The Environmental Community Health Organisation (ECHO) is advancing its green education programme, which includes plans to build several “eco-learning centres” to conduct training on good environmental practices.
In a press release, ECHO said it has more than 40 clubs in schools across the regions and three community development groups in the city. Through these groups, it aims to build eco-learning centres in Georgetown and regions 3 and 10, in order to take action on environmental issues such as garbage collection, solid waste management and conserving environmental resources.
ECHO said it has already written to the Ministry of Housing for land to be made available to realise this project, which it hopes to start in June.
Further, it said it is hopeful for assistance from the relevant authorities to facilitate discussions and collective community action on current and emerging environmental issues including climate change. Meanwhile, ECHO has also emphasised the need for the public to be educated on waste management and the importance of recycling.
The group is urging the public to be more aware of the quantity of garbage they produce and devise environmentally-friendly ways of managing or disposing it. Further, it said recycling ought to be a common feature of solid waste management in Guyana and the public should be encouraged to separate waste and to implement alternative sues for bio-degradable waste such as composting. “There are great opportunities for businesses to develop schemes to turn rubbish to fertilizer and even fuel,” ECHO said, while conceding that it is the authorities who must encourage and even facilitate these activities.
The group contends that the authorities need to be more specific about their policies on the storage, collection and disposal of waste. It also posits that government and local environment bodies, including the Environmental Protection Agency must hold people and businesses accountable for the waste they produce and suggests also, that one way of accomplishing this is to make it mandatory for manufacturers of certain types of goods to dispose, re-use or recycle the containers when consumers return them.
ECHO added that the authorities must embark on an aggressive national education programme to address the issue before it balloons further.
