Waste Management for Small Islands; Some Guidelines and Case Studies

The Answer for Remote Islands, Waste Management World

"SITA's waste to energy plant on the Isle of Man handles all of the island's waste and exports 5 MW to the grid - around 10% of the islands needs".

"In the past there have been plenty of examples of inappropriate waste management on small or remote islands, with very little attempt at adopting a sustainable approach that protects the local environment. On many small remote islands across Europe – and across the globe – indiscriminate dumping of waste was often the norm, with open burning and sometimes the tipping of the residue in a remote corner of the island. For example, for many years on the Greek island of Santorini waste was tipped over a high cliff. However this is no longer practiced and great strides have been made across many of the Greek islands in addressing these issues".

"Population critical - There are examples of larger islands having the capacity to develop modern facilities, and to attract the investment required to do so. Two recent examples include the Isle of Man (population of 85,000) and Jersey (population of 98,000), both of which have state-of-the-art waste to energy facilities in place. A third example is the Western Isles (population of 26,000) off the north-western coast of Scotland, where a new integrated waste treatment facility has fairly recently been commissioned".

Could Corfu learn from the Isle of Man or from Jersey?

Codes of Practice for Waste Management on Islands, EU manual (pdf)

Cayman Islands Garbage Disposal Guidelines

Solid Waste Management in Small Island Destinations, Teoros

Waste Management on Bermuda

"The primary role of incineration in Bermuda's waste management plan is to reduce the volume of combustible waste by up to 90% to minimize the reliance on land filling as the primary means of solid waste disposal. A secondary and important function of the facility is to extract energy from the gasses to produce electricity for the facility and to export to the local power company (BELCO) grid".


Anaerobic digestion

Composting