Cashew Gardens Community Council

Name: Cashew Gardens Community Council
Country: Trinidad And Tobago
Year of establishment: 2001
Type of organization: Community-based association or organization

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Cashew Gardens Community Council

Name: Cashew Gardens Community Council
Country:
Year of establishment:
Type of organization: Community-based association or organization

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Description

The Cashew Gardens Community Council (CGCC) is a community of concerned citizens living in central Trinidad and Tobago, whose goal is to educate the community about becoming more climate resilient and to make eco-friendly choices. Recognizing that methane gas and plastic pollutants are also biggest contributors to the negative impact on landfills in Trinidad and Tobago, the CGCC has always been concerned about pollution and ways in which we, as a community, can reduce our carbon footprint by sending less recyclable waste to the landfill. In order to address our community’s waste, the CGCC implemented two important projects. Firstly, the Cashew Garden Community Recycling Programme, which was established in 2016 and by 2021 has shown a 90% increase in recyclables collected. This project is still ongoing and to date has successfully diverted over 5 tonnes of plastic, cans, glass and tetra packs from entering our landfills. According to our National Recycling Policy 2015, these four waste types account for almost 40% of the waste that goes to our landfills. Additionally, the project has also evolved from 200 households that were part of the initial study, to three other communities around us, with a total of over 600 households now included. The items collected are sent to the Solid Waste Management Company (SWMCOL), where they are bailed and shipped to recycling facilities outside of Trinidad and Tobago. Secondly, the most recent project is the Cashew Gardens Community Composting (CGCC) initiative, which involves community collection and processing of organic waste to create fertilizer, which is used in the community garden. Organic waste contributes to the highest amounts in the nation’s four landfills at 22%. The community composting project, which began in August 2020, is the first of its kind in the country and was introduced as a pilot project involving 16 households in order to reduce greenhouse gases in landfills. On average, the project diverted over 490 kg of organic waste from the landfills which has yielded over 68 kg of compost material in a nine month period with a 20% increase in household participation in 2021.

Nature Element: Agricultural, Wetlands and rivers
Type of Action:
Sustainable Development Element: Jobs and livelihoods (SDG 1) , Gender equality (SDG 5) , Sustainable consumption and production (SDG 12) , Partnerships (SDG 17)

Environmental Impacts

The first major impact was the empowering of 10 women and 20 youths within the community, who took responsibility for the recycling within the households. The second major impact was the diversion of 5 tonnes of plastics, glass, cans and tetrapaks as well as 0.5tonnes of organic waste from the landfills and the environment. This resulted in a 1% reduction in waste take to the landfills. The third major impact was the reduction in cost for fertilizers and soil for the community garden. This was as a result of the use of the mulch from the composting, created from the organic waste collected from within the community. The fourth major impact was the community engagement and education which resulted in increased numbers of persons participating in recycling, as evidence by the increase in households from 200 to 600. The fifth major impact is that this is one of the few NGO-Government partnerships which has lasted this long. CGCC collects the waste for the Government's national recycling programme. They are the only community locally that does so.

Sustainable Development Impacts

CGCC was able to develop 10 new livelihood opportunities from its recycling programme, which falls under SDG1. Most of the positions created were filled by women since the recycling programme caters for women with children, especially those that had to home schooled during COVID. The recycling programme promotes sustainable consumption and production by encouraging households to recycle their waste. CGCC does the collection of recyclables, which are delivered to the national recycling programme under ICARE and SWMCOL. These agencies separate the waste: they send compressed plastics to the US for processing; they send tetrapaks to a facility away for processing; they send glass to Carib Glass to remake new glass and anything left, is sent to the landfills. As a result of their work, there has been a reduction of materials going to landfill, which is important since, as a SIDs, space is limited.

RESILIENCE, ADAPTABILITY, AND SELF-SUFFICIENCY

COVID-19 represented the most recent, significant social and economic challenge to the recycling initiatives of Cashew Gardens and it had little impact on their operations. Recycling activities slowed but did not stop. In terms of environmental impacts, the illegal dumping of garbage can be a irregular problem in the area and the community responds with clean-up exercises and they divert some of the waste collected to the proper recycling streams. It is for this reason, that the community noted a reduction in flooding incidences since the garbage that usually clogs drains are removed during clean-ups. This community-led recycling programme started in 2016 with no funding and will continue to run, whether funding is provided or not. As such, this makes this programme extremely resilient.

REDUCED INEQUALITIES

The recycling initiatives is extremely inclusive since it has in its employ youths as well as women from the area. The group is extremely openminded and is intolerance to prejudices. The CGCC advertises most of their activities via facebook, community whatsapp groups, etc. They also reach out, on a household level, to ensure that senior persons in the community are engage and involved in activities. It is for this reason that the group was able to increase their participation from 200 to 600 households.

GENDER EQUALITY

The majority of the council members are women. The majority of the women involved in the recycling programme are youth and women. The recycling programme has its own vehicle to transport the recyclables to recycling facilities. This equipment is managed by women. The facility also leans on youth and women to manage the garden and composting project.

Scalability

The CGCC recycling programme can be scaled-up with the development of a sorting and upcycling facility. Recyclables collected by CGCC could be sorted internally. The clean PET plastics could be sent to SWMCOL for processing. Dirty plastics, unfit for recycling, could be upcycled, via sequestration or extrusion, into usable items such as bricks, pots, benches or pavers. The CGCC recycling programme is extremely resilience since it has survived 5 years with little funding as has also survived COVID-19 and its associated lockdown and SOE locally.

Replicability

CGCC can educate in recycling, and support the implementation of a collection drive in other communities. Pre-COVID, discussion had begun to have Cashew Gardens exchange with other communities. Recently, they presented their work at the Caribbean Water and Wastewater Association's conference in October 2021, where they presented a case study of their work. They won two awards at the conference. The paper can be accessed from the following website. (https://www.tt.undp.org/content/trinidad_tobago/en/home/presscenter/articles/2013/OrganicWaste.html)

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