St. Kitts and Nevis Minister announces Conaree Landfill nearing expiration, exploring alternatives

St. Kitts and Nevis’s Minister of Sustainable Development and Environment Joyelle Clarke told the Parliament on Thursday, February 27, 2025, that the Conaree Landfill is fast approaching its “expiration date” and the government is looking into alternative waste management and recycling solutions. 

She said this while giving an update on a recent fire at the Solid Waste Management Corporation Landfill at Conaree, a solid waste dispersal site in St. Kitts. She said natural heat and gases generated by decomposing materials caused a spontaneous combustion and operators of the plant and officials of St. Kitts and Nevis Fire and Rescue Services rushed to the spot to contain the fire and kept a close watch on developments.  

“At about 1 am two days ago (February 25), the landfill did catch fire. No fire was started at the landfill. It’s combustible and that happened,” Clarke said in her address.

The minister, while speaking about the government’s environmental management efforts, conceded that the fire affected nearby communities like those in Upper Monkey Hill, Cayon, Keys and Conaree. 

She said the fire will burn naturally and the situation is likely to be under control in a few days or less. She also apologised to the local residents for the inconvenience they faced because of the fire. 

Highlighting the incident as one of St. Kitts and Nevis’s broader waste management challenges, the minister said “our landfill is at its expiration date”.

Government working on alternative solutions: Minister

Speaking on the government’s hunt for alternative solutions, she said the St. Kitts and Nevis government recently got the final draft of its Solid Waste Management Plan Report with the support of the Canada- CARICOM Expert Deployment Mechanism (CCEDM).  

“It’s almost 100 pages of what we can do – the options that are available to us for transitioning away from the landfill,” Clarke said. The document will guide the government in deciding on the next steps as it tries to transform the dual-island nation into a sustainable island state. 

Stakeholder consultation on landfills in December 2024

In December 2024, Clarke’s Ministry of Sustainable Development, Environment, Climate Action and Constituency Empowerment held a stakeholder consultation to explore options to improve the sustainability of the Conaree Landfill. 

The event was part of a six-month assessment of the sustainability of the landfills in both St. Kitts and Nevis which kicked off in July last year. It was facilitated by Robert Griesbach, Director for Energy Consulting at the global engineering firm called Hatch. It provides technical and strategic services in the fields of energy and infrastructure. 

Griesbach’s work is funded by CCEDM in collaboration with St. Kitts and Nevis’s Ministry of Sustainable Development and Environment and the solid waste management authorities on both islands and he provides technical assistance to assess both their landfills. 

The assessment includes assessing the operational structure such as sustainability of the landfills and revenue generation methods; formulating mitigative steps to improve operations, exploring opportunities for recycling and the generation of waste-to-energy; and outlining training and, health and safety standards, strengths, and areas for further improvement.

Technical assistance will help St. Kitts and Nevis formulate and implement a national waste management strategy in the long run, to facilitate the process to achieve a green economy, deliver better services and build capacity related to new technologies.

In the December workshop, the stakeholders reviewed best practices for landfill management that are being followed in other parts of the Caribbean, like in Barbados and Grand Cayman in the Cayman Islands, and the feasibility of applying them in St. Kitts and Nevis.