The major trash dump in Marshall Islands, the Majuro landfill, is a “is a fly and rodent infested mess that is rarely covered.” Worse, they are flat running out of space to put the trash, so sometimes it overflows into the sea. Yuck.
They’ve started sorting out the green waste at Majuro, creating compost with it, as well as using it to cover the trash and cut down on the smell. But these seem short-term fixes, band-aids rather than real solutions.
The Majuro landfill is not a modern sanitary lanfill. Other islands handle the problem better. But still, with a very limited amounts of land, more people every day, the question is – where do small islands put their trash?
Like the canary in the coal mine that warned of danger, the landfill problems of small islands demonstrate what could be coming for all of us.