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(CNS): Premier Wayne Panton has said negotiations surrounding the ReGen waste management project have presented serious difficulties, not least of which has been the challenge of securing value for money. Over the 25-year lifetime of the proposed project, it is expected to cost the public purse at least $1.5 billion, but Cayman will still need to cut the amount of rubbish it generates for it to be sustainable.
Panton explained that since coming to office and finding the deal signed by the Progressive-led administration with the Dart consortium just weeks before the election, there had been many unresolved issues. Some are presenting serious challenges, including ones that will impact the lifespan of the various elements of the project and its future sustainability.
Panton does not believe the final cost for building and operating the facility over the next 25 years will be as much as $2 billion, though he admits it will be in excess of $1.5 billion. He said that the report by the Office of the Auditor General on this project would be made public.
The OAG’s work has been credited with helping the government with the negotiations over the deal the previous administration signed, especially with the “baked-in problems”, as they have often been described.
“Government inherited an agreement to make 30 more agreements,” Panton told CNS this week, as he explained why it has been so difficult to reach a deal that will not bankrupt the country. After the general elections, PACT set about better understanding the project, he said. “Our main concern was not with the solution itself but ensuring value for money… and that it meets our needs now and into the future.”
The government has since discovered that multiple issues had not been addressed, including where the Department of Environmental Health, which will still be collecting rubbish, will operate from. The deal had included a clause that would have seen this critical department booted off the premises once the landfill and related land area were handed over to Dart.
Rather than a project where the negotiations were essentially completed and ready for construction to start, the agreement PACT found was a deal to make a deal, even after the PPM had spent more than two years in talks to get to that point.
“There is still a great deal of work to be completed in order to finalise contract negotiations and reach financial close,” Panton said some five and a half years after Dart and its partners were selected as the winning bidders.
In 2020 the PPM government also gave Dart the go-ahead to begin remediating the dump mound, known as Mount Trashmore. That green light was not only too soon, but it has created additional problems in the short term as the space left for land-filling now is inadequate, Panton said.
Managing the landfill, especially over the next three years while the waste-to-energy facility is constructed, will need to include a campaign to help people reduce their waste. The premier said this would require a much greater effort on the part of the government and the public to cut the rubbish we produce by reducing what we buy, reusing and repurposing what we have and recycling more.
“Even if ReGen were to be commissioned and become operational tomorrow, there is still a huge role for the public to play in terms of both waste reduction and litter reduction,” he said.
Estimates about how much space would be required while the waste-to-energy plant was under construction may have been inaccurate in the first place, the premier suggested. But now, with a growing population producing more waste, there may not be enough space to last until the WTE plant opens in early 2026.
It is likely that dumping over the next three years will eventually encroach into the area set aside for the lined residual landfill where the ash from WTE will go. This will have a knock-on impact on the sustainability of that part of the project.
“ReGen will not have unlimited capacity,” he said. “Like all landfills, this will have a finite capacity, currently planned for the life of the project contract, approximately 25 years. To ensure the longevity of this infrastructure, we all need to collectively take steps to reduce the amount of waste we produce as individuals, families and businesses.
“Reducing the waste we generate in the first instance, followed by reusing and recycling, are some of the most important tools we have to manage waste more sustainably now and going forward,” the premier added.
The single-use plastic ban, which will include styrofoam containers, is set to be rolled out in a matter of weeks, and plans for the government to partner with the private sector on glass recycling are underway, as well as proposals to promote reducing waste in the first place and reusing stuff so it doesn’t become waste.
“We have to facilitate a paradigm shift in these islands that takes us back to the mindset previous generations embodied without necessarily realising it,” Panton said. “For our predecessors, everything that could be reused was reused. Material possessions were few and far between and they were not taken for granted. Throwing something away was a last resort because, as they knew, there is no ‘away’.”
Panton said that as the government continues negotiations with Dart, finalising once and for all the contract to build these new facilities, the public must be part of the solution by embracing personal practices that minimise the waste generated.
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