Dear Editor,
On September 6, it will be nine years since Hurricane Irma devastated St. Maarten. The Netherlands subsequently made hundreds of millions of euros available for reconstruction, with €470 million eventually administered through the World Bank Trust Fund. Waste management and the landfill were explicitly identified as priorities.
Nine years later, however, Mount Waste is still there – and still growing.
I worked for the department of ROB in St. Maarten in 1998–1999 and again from 2002 to 2005. In 1999, colleagues and I calculated the remaining capacity of the landfill. Our conclusion was that it had perhaps eight years left. At the time, we thought: surely eight years would be enough to find a solution.
Twenty-seven years later, we are still waiting.
This is not because nothing has happened. Since Irma, the World Bank and the National Recovery Programme Bureau have invested in better landfill management, equipment, removal of debris and shipwrecks, studies and the relocation of people and businesses around the landfill. A new National Waste Management Strategy, Future of Waste, was presented in 2025.
But improved management of Mount Waste is not the same as solving the waste problem. In essence…. Nothing really happened to solve this issue!
More than 50 million euros was originally reserved for waste management and addressing the landfill. According to the July 2025 Trust Fund report, approximately US$52 million of the original US$85 million waste budget was still available. Meanwhile, the World Bank and NRPB are scheduled to conclude their activities at a certain moment. Time is running out.
The remarkable thing is that St. Maarten does not need another decade of studies. Much of the groundwork already exists.
My proposal is therefore straightforward. Stop with red tape and turtle-speed processes of the World Bank and the SXM government should reclaim jurisdiction and organise a joint solution.
Use part of the remaining Trust Fund resources to establish a Sustainable Waste Management Project Bureau, modelled on the successful Reconstruction Project Bureau created after Hurricane Luis. Give it a clear mandate, sufficient authority and a small team of experienced technical, financial and legal experts from St. Maarten and the European Netherlands.
At the same time, we finally establish an independent SXM Waste Authority, responsible for waste collection, processing and financing. A sustainable waste system ultimately requires a transparent waste levy for households and businesses.
And think beyond St. Maarten. Saba and Sint Eustatius are too small to develop sophisticated waste-processing systems independently. Cooperation with the French side should also become a practical priority, including jointly pursuing European funding.
Above all, stop starting over. Use the technical studies, legislation, tender documents and financing models that already exist, update them where necessary, and move towards implementation.
The waste problem is not unsolvable. The problem has been fragmentation, institutional risk avoidance and a lack of sustained leadership.
Nine years after Irma, residents of St. Maarten deserve more than another strategy or study. By the tenth anniversary of Irma, there should be an approved, financed and executable plan to finally stop Mount Waste from growing.
Roel van de Loo
Former resident and SXM lover
