SWANA to Present Haiti Earthquake Response at WASTECON 2010

SWANA to Present Haiti Earthquake Response at WASTECON 2010

Silver Spring - The Solid Waste Association of North American (SWANA) will present its recommendations for improving solid waste collection operations in Haiti in the aftermath of the January 2010 earthquake in a newly added technical session at WASTECON 2010 in Boston. The session will take place on August 17, 2010 from 4:00 – 5:00 p.m. in the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center at WASTECON 2010.

In March 2010 SWANA received a request from the Service Metropolitain de Collecte des Residus Solides (SMCRS) in Haiti for assistance in dealing with the solid waste problems occurring following the earthquake. Solid wastes were piling up in the streets and canals posing serious sanitation and public health problems and SMCRS personnel working 24 hours a day were unable to keep up with the large quantities of wastes being generated. The SMCRS is the state-appointed agency to collect and dispose of solid waste in the greater Port-au-Prince area of Haiti, which includes eight cities and a population of 2.5 million.

SWANA responded by establishing a SWANA Haiti Response Team comprised of volunteer SWANA members from SWANA's Collection Technical Division who met with representatives of the SMCRS and developed a position paper that documents Haiti's equipment and service needs. A copy of that paper can be downloaded here.

SMCRS representatives and SWANA's Haiti Response Team will participate in a technical session at WASTECON 2010 and will discuss the project and the recommendations of the team. Haiti represenatives will include:

• Germain Paulemon, General Director SMCRS,
• Stanley Delinois, Engineer Haiti Department of Planification,
• Patrick Charles, Interpreter and
• Carl-Henry Vielot, Engineering Director of Landfill.

SWANA would like to thank Waste Connections and Golder Associates for their financial assistance in sponsoring the travel expenses for the Haiti representatives.

The members of the SWANA Haiti Response Team that have been invited to participate in the WASTECON Haiti session are:

• Victoria Garland, Solid Waste Director - Charlotte, NC,
• Bill Del Vecchio, Director of Solid Waste and Recycling - Georgetown University,
• John Pittman, Assistant Solid Waste Director - Clearwater, FL,
• Rusty Cole , Waste Connections, LLC Operations Assistant Manager - Pierce County, WA
• Wayman J. Pearson, President - WJ Pearson Inc, And
• Jeremy O'Brien, Director of Applied Research, SWANA

For more information on this session, visit www.WASTECON.org or contact Jeremy O'Brien, SWANA staff liaison, at jobrien@swana.org.