Lead Editor-Newsgathering
ryan.bachoo@cnc3.co.tt
At 11 years old, Sian Cuffy-Young was bathing on the beach in Chaguaramas, where the boardwalk now stands, when a loaded diaper struck her in the face.
She would make two promises after that encounter. The first was to never return to that beach, and the second was to help clean up the places she loved.
It sparked her journey into waste management, as she began to question why anyone would ruin a place that she loved so much.
Cuffy-Young explained to WE magazine in a recent interview, “It sparked this inner light of wanting to change the way people see waste and make sure that they put their garbage in a bin.”
Cuffy-Young added, “I’ve been picking up after people since I was about eight.”
Her father, who was a scout, instilled in her from an early age the conservation law, “You always leave a place cleaner than you met it.”
And so, Cuffy-Young’s life would be dedicated to managing the waste Trinidad and Tobago produces. It would lead her to two stints at the Solid Waste Management Company (SWMCOL).
In her first stint between 2005 and 2009, she was an environmental projects officer, which was the think tank of the organisation. She would come up with the company’s environmental projects and initiatives, carry out technical reviews, and led all of the organisation’s education efforts.
Her second time at SWMCOL was between 2014 and 2015. This time she was a resource recovery coordinator before being promoted to the project manager for the then Beverage Container Collection Project.
It was after she left SWMCOL in 2015, that Cuffy-Young would establish Siel Environment on her own–a means of adding a new voice and a new dimension to how people interacted with waste management.
“I did it also because I have an innate desire to see my country clean. Everything I do is centred around that and the mission statement that I created then, and we still have it, is to transform the way you think and act towards waste,” Cuffy-Young explained.
As Siel Environment marks ten years this year, she has expanded to have two full-time members work with her.
The organisation is now completely focused on food and organic waste. Their last waste characterisation study indicated that food and organic waste account for 32.4 per cent of all national waste which is the highest percentage of waste we generate in this country.
Cuffy-Young explained, “We embarked on a full ecosystem programme where we help organisations measure, monitor and manage their food waste. We help governments develop food waste policies which can become legislation so that food waste management becomes mandatory. We also deal with the edible parts of food where we try to donate those or collaborate where we can get food and sell edible products to the people who need it.”
They are now the only accredited food waste prevention consultants with the pledge on food waste in the Caribbean region.
It’s a third-party certification programme where Cuffy-Young and her team assess a business’s food waste practices and award an internationally recognised certification. This certification can be displayed on the company’s website and staff uniforms, “allowing them to attract eco-conscious consumers”.
The 43-year-old would also champion a programme titled, “Doh waste good food”.
She explained the essence of the programme, saying, “We wanted people to realise that their first line of defence, according to the food waste hierarchy, is to reduce food waste. Then to feed people because we have so many people in this country and by extension the Caribbean region who are hungry, and to feed animals.”
Cuffy-Young’s lifelong drive to educate citizens on proper waste management continues. However, she insists it must be done strategically.
She said, “Education is an ongoing thing. I think what we have done in the past is we present people with information and that’s very different than education. If you’re educating people, that ties into not just increasing their knowledge base but also changing their behaviour.”
She said for too long the focus has been on giving people too much information, but it has only confused them.
The Tunapuna native remains committed to educating the public on proper waste management and the consequences of poor disposal. While there is still a long way to go, she’s proud of how far she’s come since that life-changing encounter at age 11.
She welcomes anyone passionate about proper waste management to join her mission—but only if they share her genuine commitment, because Sian Cuffy-Young is serious about making T&T a cleaner place.