The St. Kitts Solid Waste Management Corporation was represented at a recent workshop on sustainable management mechanism in persistent organic pollutants abbreviated as POPs. Mr. Keithley Phillips, General manager of the SWMC and Ms. Jamella Christopher, Human Resource Manager attended the Regional Inception Workshop in Antigua, which focused on the reduction of Unintentionally Produced Persistent Organic Pollutants (UPOPs) emissions by improving waste management practices at landfills.

St. Kitts and Nevis is party to a regional project on the development and implementation of sustainable management mechanism for POPs in the Caribbean. The objective of the project is to build both institutional and human resource capacity to deal with the impacts of POPS and unintentionally produced POPs in eight Caribbean countries, that are parties to the Stockholm Convention. This is being achieved through the updating of National Implementation Plans (NIPs) in all eight countries to take on board an assessment of all chemicals currently listed in the annexes of the convention as POPs and to develop environmentally-sound management options to deal with these chemicals. It also seeks to do this through the provision of training and awareness programmes and through the design and implementation of demonstration projects in medical waste management, integrated waste management, contaminated site assessment and development of remediation strategies. The project is funded through the Global Environment Facility as a full-sized project. It is also implemented by the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) acting as the GEF Implementing Agency. This is done in conjunction with the Basel Convention Regional Centre for the Caribbean (BCRC-Caribbean) acting as the GEF Executing Agency in the region.

The Inception Workshop attended by the SWMC officials, was held on Monday October 7 at The Verandah Resort and Spa, Long Bay, St. Phillips, Antigua. It was facilitated by the Resources and Waste Advisory Group (RWA) and hosted by the BCRC Caribbean in Collaboration with the Government of Antigua and Barbuda. Other countries that participated in the workshop are Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, St. Lucia and St. Vincent and the Grenadines.