By Marvin Cato | HGP Nightly News |
GEORGETOWN, GUYANA — The long-term solution to Guyana’s overflowing municipal landfills and strained municipal collection networks does not begin at the dumpsite, but inside citizens’ kitchens.
That was the primary takeaway presented by Rampertab Etwaria, Founder of Waste To Wealth Caribbean Inc., during a high-level courtesy call and technical briefing with Minister of Local Government and Regional Development, Priya Manickchand.
At the Ministry’s Kingston headquarters, Etwaria outlined an alternative, citizen-led circular economy framework designed to intercept and divert biodegradable domestic waste before it enters a municipal compactor truck or reaches a regional landfill.
The Four-Pillar Model: Separate, Divert, Compost, Monetize
The Waste To Wealth Caribbean initiative trains households to view everyday biodegradable refuse not as disposable garbage, but as a high-value biological asset. The initiative challenges families to adopt four practical actions:
- Separate: Isolating organic food scraps and discarded cardboard at the source inside the household.
- Divert: Preventing organic material from entering municipal garbage bins and overburdened facilities like the Haags Bosch Sanitary Landfill.
- Compost: Layering organic kitchen discards with shredded carbon-rich cardboard using a standardized backyard decomposition system.
- Monetize: Transforming waste into rich Organic Miracle Garden Soil within approximately 12 weeks, which can be deployed to regenerate household kitchen gardens, support domestic food security, or be packaged and sold on the local agricultural market.
“We want to upgrade how citizens think, from waste management to wealth management,” Etwaria told Minister Manickchand. “Instead of asking only how we manage garbage when it reaches the dumpsite, we want citizens asking how much of what leaves their kitchens should ever become garbage in the first place.”
Scaling to 1,000 Champion Families by 2030
Briefing the Minister on field progress achieved throughout 2026, Etwaria reported that the movement has already completed six community educational activations, successfully training and activating 77 “Champion Families” across Georgetown and the mining town of Linden in Region Ten.
These participating households are currently enrolled in the organization’s flagship 12-Week Waste To Wealth Family Programme, where families receive hands-on instruction in organic soil fabrication, composting temperature management, and soil harvesting.
To expand this model nationally, Waste To Wealth Caribbean is pursuing structured partnerships with the central government, regional democratic councils (RDCs), corporate Guyana, and international development agencies:
- 2030 Strategic Milestone: The organization aims to recruit, train, and certify 1,000 Champion Families by 2030, diverting metric tons of biodegradable organic waste away from state collection infrastructure annually.
- Decentralizing Solid Waste Strategy: Etwaria emphasized that while state procurement of garbage compactors, transfer stations, and landfill cells is vital, capital infrastructure alone cannot solve the national solid waste dilemma without behavioral change at the household level.
Minister Manickchand commended the grassroots initiative, noting that community-driven environmental stewardship complements the Ministry’s wider ongoing investments in municipal markets, regional drainage, and urban sanitation infrastructure across the administrative regions.
