Page 22 - IB January 2024

Environment Environment

SENDING BACK THE RUBBISH TO

KEEP KIRIBATI BEAUTIFUL

Alice Leney – the ‘grand-daddy’ of Kiribati’s successful recycling program.

By Rimon Rimon Maange program, this time to lead the Kiribati Solid Waste
Management Programme – a New Zealand-funded initiative
‘Kiribati Te Boboto’ means Kiribati the beautiful. assisting Kiribati’s urban development plans.
It’s a slogan you see almost everywhere on South Tarawa Since the inception of the Kaoki Maange in 2003, aluminum
—Kiribati’s administrative capital— where solid waste cans, PET bottles, and lead-acid batteries are rarely seen
management used to be a problem that had no real solution. littering the island. This is due mainly to the implementation
Today, the problem still exists but is being managed, thanks of a container deposit system – where a deposit of AU$0.05
to the ‘mind-altering-approach’ taken by the Environment is levied on every beverage container at the point of import,
and Conservation Division (ECD), housed under the Kiribati’s with consumers being able to redeem AU$0.04 when they
Ministry of Environment, Lands and Agricultural Development return containers for recycling.
(MELAD). “We needed to find a vernacular – a word for recycling
At the beginning of this millennium, solid waste disposal because no such word exists in the Kiribati language… because
took its toll on Kiribati’s environment—mostly visible along maange typically refers to rubbish such as leaves and sticks
its idyllic lagoon and coastline—where aluminum cans, from dead trees… so in understanding that we are sending
polyethylene terephthalate (PET) containers, plastic bags back (kaoki) the rubbish that came from the ships (as in
and packaging became a common eyesore that no one could aluminum cans and PET bottles), we came up with the term
effectively address. kaoki maange,” Leney said.
It wasn’t until 2004 that the Kiribati government made Leney added that a “clear, essential element of these waste
significant changes to its environment legislation, and the programs is that they’ve got to be able to name things… and
management of solid, chemical, and hazardous waste became then they’ve got to be able to hang all the understanding
part of Kiribati laws. onto that name… because we are really in the business of
But equally important is the implementation and behaviour change.”
enforcement of the laws. That’s where garbologist Alice Leney That’s how kaoki maange became intimately linked to
—the ‘grand-daddy’ of Kiribati’s successful recycling program Kiribati te boboto, because by sending back the rubbish, it is
called the Kaoki Maange—enters the picture. effectively keeping Kiribati beautiful.
Based in New Zealand but originally from Britain, Leney As a garbologist, Leney says people often laugh, almost in
is back on South Tarawa 20 years after he setup the Kaoki mockery, when they hear of his profession.

22 Islands Business, January 2024