With Bermuda churning out more garbage per person than the population of Manhattan it is not surprising to discover the man in charge of overseeing the removal and disposal of the Island?s mountains of trash is ?horrified? by the statistics.

And with the ever-present worry that a major breakdown at the Tynes Bay incinerator could halt the entire waste disposal process Works and Engineering Minister David Burch has every reason to be concerned enough that he has a number of strategies on the go aimed at improving the situation. The ten-year-old incinerator has two input streams for carrying garbage into the furnace. It is intended to create a third stream, allowing more flexibility to shut down one of the other streams to allow for regular maintenance.

Even with a more effective incineration process, it is finding ways of restricting the 67,000 tonnes of waste generated each year on the Island that is taxing Sen. Burch and his department the most.

A mechanical breakdown at the North Shore plant used for cutting down and shredding larger items such as construction waste and wood pallets before they reach the Tynes Bay incinerator has resulted in a towering mountain of backlogged trash. If Sen. Burch has his way the amount of rubbish sent for cutting down will be reduced by shipping wood pallets back to the US on returning container vessels rather than have them piled up and burnt on the Island.

?I am amazed at the endless stream of trucks that roll in with truckloads of wooden pallets that come off the container ships. I?m saying ?can?t we put them back in the containers and when they open them back on the other side they have got a gift of their pallets back??,? explained the Minister.

?We have started initial talks about the pallets because it does not make sense to incinerate them when they still have some useful life.

?I?m bold enough to say ?let?s try it?, stuff them back in the containers and see what they say when they get on the other side. The containers go back empty to be refilled. It is worth exploring.?

Sen. Burch is also concerned with dangerous items being placed in rubbish sacks, such as sharp, pointed items and other dangerous materials.

?One of the difficulties we are having with what people are putting in their garbage is the complete disrespect and danger that they are placing the collectors in.

?Most people appreciate that if we didn?t have people doing this job we wouldn?t want to do it. In having someone remove our garbage we should have some respect.?

While there are no legal sanctions that can be imposed at the moment against offending neighbourhoods or houses who cause problems for the trash collectors, he is supportive of the garbage being left outside the offenders? homes as a lesson if they ?continue to abuse the situation?.

W&E and the Keep Bermuda Beautiful group are discussing waste management issues. Sen. Burch expects legislation to be tabled in the next Parliamentary session making it easier to take enforcement action against those who abuse waste management rules.

The promise of a third stream for the Tynes Bay incinerator was once thought likely to add 20 years of effective capacity to the facility.

But Sen. Burch points out: ?Well, a lot of those numbers and data are being thrown out of the window because the waste that we are generating is making a mockery of those projections. The time is going to be a lot less than that, which means that Tynes Bay?s useful life is likely to come to an end a lot sooner than was originally planned for.?

The landfill dump at the Airport is moving closer and closer to Tucker?s Town. However, pilot projects to ship old computers and air conditioning units to recycling centres overseas are underway.

And a new automated recycling plant should be commissioned in January. It will deal with glass, aluminium, and tin and has capacity to recycle other materials. Sen. Burch said: ?We used to recycle paper and there are some silly issues as to why we don?t do so now. The complaint has been that we generate too much paper to sell it to mostly farmers for bedding.

Sen. Burch concluded: ?My view is that we make money from it, you are helping the environment and the fact that you may have to incinerate some the excess is a bonus because at the moment we are having to incinerate all of it. We might as well make an opportunity to use some of it and not have to put it all in the incinerator.?

More on Bermuda?s battle against waste tomorrow