Held at the Governor’s complex, the Guam Green Growth Steering committee met to share advancements in their sustainability efforts.
PNC’s Destiny Cruz has more…
G3’s Conservation Core made significant progress in fostering sustainability in Guam, evident through concrete updates provided in today’s G3 steering committee meeting.
Phil Cruz, the Sustainability Coordinator at the Center for Island Sustainability, shared the following impact accomplishments resulting from weekly island beautification events thus far: of Guam’s 19 villages, the conservation core reached 17, collecting 288 large trash bags of aluminum cans in the process.
Additionally, of those 288 aluminum cans collected, Phil reported that 57 bags would be recycled through the iRecycle program to benefit Guam’s local schools.
He continued with updates saying, “We have three containers–20 cubic yard wall containers of household items, metals, and trash, six trailers of just strictly metals, and then 263 individual items of whether white goods or other live items including furniture or just gosh, any really large item that wouldn’t go in a regular trash bag.”
Phil explained that the conservation core works closely with Guam’s mayors in helping to identify the type of beautification needed in the villages, which not only benefits Guam’s environment but helps to highlight issues and solutions for them.
For example, he noted that village mayors report that illegal dumping sites continue to grow due to a speculated link between those of lower socioeconomic status who may be unable to afford to dispose of their waste properly.
Though this is a growing concern, Phil explained how data collection from these clean-up efforts might aid in informing policy. He said, “With this data, we hope that this can help inform policy and help our decision makers to figure out solutions to solving these issues.”
More presently, in light of tomorrow’s Liberation day celebrations, the G3 conservation core, in partnership with i-Recycle, DPW, and the Islandwide Beautification Task Force, will issue 200 recycling bins to spectators along the parade route to encourage the proper disposal of aluminum cans to be recycled.
Destiny Cruz, PNC News First.
