Counterpart participants from Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea and Vanuatu attending the three days Solid Waste Management (SWM) workshop under J-PRISM sponsored for JICA yesterday visited prime sites in Honiara.
Sites visited included St. Nicholas dchool, Panatina Valley Community and Ranadi landfill or dump site.
The field trip to these sites was part of the workshop’s learning curves for participants to grasp and see first-hand some of the examples of managing solid waste at schools, communities and the city’s main dump site.
Ms. Vivianne Morofa of Papua New Guinea shared after the visit that she was pleased to see some things that she can learn from.
“There are certain things that I am grateful to learn from and others I see needs improvement,” she said.
She said, there is no perfection in managing solid waste but an attempt to control and manage it in the best suitable way that fits whatever environment we live in is the important thing.
Ms Morofa added whilst there are some similarities found here, there are also differences and this is where each participant from respective countries can learn from each other.
“Where there is any gap needed to our own setting, we will learn from,” she said.
At St. Nicholas school, they were able to be introduced to the schools solid waste management system which includes recycling of empty bottles and cans.
This included a new designed technology known as Tasei Soil System (TSS) for liquid wastes management.
They also paid visit to Panatina Valley Community to see for themselves how the community there manages solid waste at the community level.
The Ranadi landfill or dump site was the final site visited.
At Ranadi dumpsite the participants get to see first-hand how and where all rubbish in Honiara goes to.
Including a new landfill administration and training centre on site, used for training and houses staff to administer daily operations on site funded for by Japan.
Final day of the workshop will be today, when participants in their counterpart groups will present analysis of their discussions in the first two days and looks into J-PRISM project phase II with recommendations made.
By BRADFORD THEONOMI
