Exactly

It's getting bad

oops

same old same old

What you should get right is that the phrase "3rd World Country" is defined by being a non aligned country, i.e. not democratic, and not communist!
As far as the level of development of a country is concerned; one thing is certain and that is that vocabulary and use of language around the world has drastically declined despite the "improvements" that come along with development, thus the constant miss use of the "3rd World Phrase".
Think we'd all have to agree that the Bahamas has come along way development wise, with regard to some infrastructure anyways. Ultimately most have access to cable, tel, cell phones, air-conditioning and health care, quality food, hardly undeveloped on the world scale. In fact not even close to the low standards found in any impoverished country....so get a grip.
Unfortunately the "Elite Pigs" of our society having had such a head start with their grand wealth advantage; its thereby allowed them to all but eliminate any chance of the missing development of the middle class to succeed! Nothing like being born on 3rd base!
Instead we have seen the quick dash to modern slavery via financial rein! Where else in the world can a business man with a handful of employees make millions, while he starves this same handful of employees with a couple hundred dollars a week pay.

Text book approach here is unfortunately a slow and questionable approach!

Part 2
The methane vents as used at the current landfill operation- gabion baskets, these are not suitable to allow anything other than a partial escape of methane, but certainly not suitable for collection, Also there are not any practical after the fact remedies to collect methane, once a landfill is improperly operated; i.e. just imagine a bunch of domed layers of garbage, separated by essentially non porous layers of limestone fill, within each layer there is methane generation- how does one tap this?
The recent fire was very large, noting it was likely the largest in recent history. At the time of the fire, the entire cell area (approx 20 acres) had been operated for months without the use of cover material. This allowed the fire to spread wide and deep.

If we want the environment fixed, we have to take it seriously. Slinging mud doesn't help.
A capitalist arrangement at a landfill is completely different than an environmental approach.
One can't enter into a contract with a capitalist, and then reasonably expect them to operate with any motive other than profit. This goes for all publicly traded and private waste operators. Can't blame them, their not going to use their money to clean the environment. They might act in best interest within the steps they take, but they won't take steps that don't pay.
To fix this, a serious, non capitalist and non corrupt approach needs to be taken. Perhaps they can combine the current capitalist recycling program with an environmental concerned approach to manage the balance of landfill operation, this funded by tipping fees and subsidized as necessary. Until that commitment is made, nothing will change.

Part 1
Landfill operation is very simple:
Construct a cell - like a bowl, a hole in the ground, or a bowl constructed by berms forming a perimeter on flat ground.
Line the cell- a non porous liner - I.E. HDPE is used to seal the bottom
Leachate Collection- achieved with perforated pipes embedded in gravel within the cell liner, this to collect the toxic leachate- after collection the leachate goes to treatment (or is supposed to)
Garbage is to be placed in layers and compacted (compaction has never been done here), then as each area is compacted , cover material is placed on top. The cover material is to be non porous- thus stopping infiltration of rainwater into the garbage layers, and therefore further increasing the volume of leachate created.
Once a level is completed, in the next work area chosen, one is supposed to scrape back the cover material, then start adding and compacting more garbage. Re use of cover material (fill) serves two purposes, to permit leachate from successive layers of garbage to migrate down to collection pipes, and to minimize the amount of space cover material occupies within the landfill cell.
Care must be taken once the cell is filled to the height of the berms, as successive layers must not exceed the dimensions of the original cell "bowl". Care must also be taken to ensure the cover material is adequately scraped back; since this is non porous, if it's not scrapped back properly, leachate from successive layers may be able to run off over the previous layer of cover material , and escape the cell perimeter, and therefore the collection piping in the bottom of the cell.
We all have seen the mountain of garbage at the landfill- the "Canadian Built Cell". No measurable compaction effort was ever taken. The mound grossly exceeds the size of the original cell. Cover material used was never scraped back. Therefore all the leachate from the upper layers has been running off the sides for years, and entering the ground water.
Methane collection is only financially viable during the peak of its life cycle. It takes several years for the natural production to reach levels that merit financially viable collection, and then their tends to be between a 12 and 30-35 year timeline that its productive.

Hi EnoughIsEnough

I agree that the market is small, and hard to make a profit in recycling, also agree that perhaps a foreign company shouldn't be here doing the work. Though admittedly I don't know the facts of this foreign companies proposal compared to the Bahamian companies' proposals. The comparison may well indicate the foreign company was the best choice for us. I.e. local companies would have gouged us for the same service.

However, free market capitalism is just that, a free market. We little people (who don't have monopolies), must compete. In my opinion, it is very likely that local proposals were much higher in cost and didn't include revenue sharing with government; equally possible that corruption existed in local or in the foreign proposals? Who knows, given how things seem to be going here.

My point is simply that we either have free markets or we don't. All to often work is done via "who you know" rather than what your abilities and price is. And as we all know, the "Elite" here get more than their fair share of government work. Most of them need another million as much as they need a hole in their heads! While at the same time, those of us "little people" are forced to compete for what work is not "somehow aligned" for someone favoured.

Monopolies are bad, look at BEC for instance. The oil industry worldwide, we are now seeing that they can produce oil for $50.00 or so, we only know this because on this rare occasion they are fighting (competing) for market share. But rest assured soon "big oil" will be back to colluding and limiting supply and drive the price up to double what it is today.

Whenever the "Elite" can get monopolies, or collude, we little people loose.

Notice in this quote from the article "Mr Beukes told Tribune Business that the landfill operator was open to working with BISX-listed Bahamas Waste on recycling and other initiatives, after the latter’s chairman expressed concern that the two companies would essentially be competing with each other on recycled cardboard exports."

My point of contention is that what kind of comment is that, to actually state that he is concerned that the "two companies would essentially be competing with each other on recycled cardboard exports"

That came from Mr Peter Andrews!

Let me tell you something Mr Peter Andrews; free market capitalism is all about competition!

The problem was once written about by David Roth, granted he was talking about a different industry, but in my opinion it applies to all industries, here is the quote: "The Rich, Elite Pigs of Society never want to compete, It's these people who want monopolies on all the industry they are involved in, ( like organized crime) so they can charge whatever the hell they want. Meanwhile these same Rich, Elitist Pigs of Society - they expect all us little people to compete over the scraps left in the free market"

I say stuff spiders, you have to compete and earn a dollar the same way the rest of us do !

I hope everyone can see and notice where he is actually quoted stating he didn't think he should have to compete. In most countries, having monopolies is illegal, so I think it's a good that they face some competition.