Thirteen. It was nearly mid-November. Like the other 13 children of Nou Nouvo Baz in Sainte-Croix, Mélanie had seen the strange lady arrive with that black plastic bin bag, half puzzled, half amused, giggling with surprise and expectation. Mélanie was just waiting for her to empty it!

Batteries, hey, there are batteries!? How to get rid of batteries, just throw them away ? ?Hey kids, batteries can be harmful, when they leak; just if a pair of them touch each other, they can spark off and burn you.? Intense silence, protruded attention... ?Because there are chemicals in them that react like explosives.? Now just picture these chemicals infiltrating our ground water.

In that role, Pamela Bapoo-Dundoo, who in real life is an eco-counsellor by profession and national coordinator for the UNDP Global Environment Facility Small Grants Programme (GEF-SGP) in Mauritius, has little difficulty to share and make children understand the issues of waste management.

It is not always the case with older chaps in private institutions or NGOs that are too happy at the beginning to find that lady a little bit ridiculous from their ?I don?t care? world. But, as she goes through her "nose in the bin" sessions, the smile dies out from their faces when they start realising that they indeed do lots of things in everyday life to pollute the environment. When they understand that, when they choose some goods rather than others: like ice cream cones with a plastic cap rather than a carton one. ?Plastic takes years to disintegrate, whereas carton is biodegradable and a souvenir after a few weeks.?

?Incinerate? : a hateful word to the environmental lady. ?It should be the last recourse ! Because it only encourages people to be more consumerist, without any guilt, thus depleting the planet from its resources and returning it as ashes. What a perfectly vicious circle. Any sensible person will understand that we need to reduce our consumption of the planet?s resources, then re-use and recycle what we have drawn from it.?

Resource mobilization

?So take care when you manipulate old batteries or choose an ice cream. Just think of the lifespan and pollution caused by the package you throw away.? Melanie and her friends of Roche-Bois, who are producing handicrafts from waste products under a funding from the GEF-SGP, will retain that we all have a share of responsibility in caring for the environment. ?Do you realise where all this waste goes?(?) To Mare-Chicose, obviously(?) Would you like to have such a station at your doorstep?? This can be a very convincing argument to change attitudes.

But these sessions also have a more immediate aim : to prepare the corporate sector, staff, stakeholders to collaborate actively to the conservation of our environment, notably by co-funding NGOs with the GEF-SGP in that field. ?As the administrator of the UNDP GEF SGP for Mauritius, Rodrigues and Agalega, I manage, plan, coordinate, execute, monitor and evaluate technical assistance projects and activities at national level as well as provide guidance and advice to the national counterparts. One of my very important tasks is resource mobilization.? Each year, GEF SGP has to find at least 50% of co-funding for the amount of grant that it allocates. ?Last year, we allocated Rs 10,524,415 for 10 projects and the cash co-funding amounted to Rs 26,270,110. In kind contribution, which we also value, was nearly four times the sum we allocated.?

This very positive response from sponsors and bilateral donors would not have been possible without the intensive networking by grantees and the national coordinator. ?The nose in the bin? sensitization session is just one of the means deployed by Pamela Bapoo-Dundoo and which she enjoys as it keeps her in touch with her original profession. She particularly feels that she has made a humble contribution when she sees a spark of thought triggered in the eyes of those who have just attended her session.

Do not waste water

In 10 years some 75 projects have been funded: ?My job is also to monitor and ensure that the money is well spent. ?We have to be very careful when we choose to support a project or an NGO. There are still a few which are just PO Box NGOs, outrageously run by the members of one family or having life-time presidents and 'representing? the Mauritian civil society in international forum, shamelessly using donor money. Speak of good governance! The GEF-SGP is guided by an independent national steering committee with members who rotate regularly and projects that are selected with a transparent and strategic focus for global impact.?

But let us return to that other problem of wastage. Recent studies have revealed that each Mauritian produces a daily volume of 1.2 kg of waste. ?We plan to have 2 million tourists. Did somebody wonder where the waste produced by these people would go? Have we thought of water consumption and production of energy??

Long-term planning is imperative. Which the Barbados government has understood. ?Its National Strategic Plan calls for 40% of energy needs to be met from renewable energy sources by 2025.? This is long-term investment and savings to become more independent from the oil industry. And Barbados is not as rich as Mauritius. ?It seems that our model is the Balearics.? You know : Ibiza, seasonal work, overcrowded, ruined beaches...

?Our grand-parents, who had to face less easy times, had to spare resources; technology was at its very debut but there was sometimes greater ?intelligence? in housekeeping.? Now there are real means to spare resources. For example: showers, with economic showerheads that use little water but compensate with high pressure debit. ?But the truth is that we spoil water because it is too cheap. We don't know the realities of those countries affected by severe droughts and where people have to walk kilometres to fill a simple jar.?

Today, if we leave the tap open while shaving, 50 litres of water, costly processed through chlorination and filtration and pumped to our tap, go down the drain ! We could choose to use a glass of water instead. In the same way, we carelessly use 18 litres of water for three minutes of tooth brushing...

So Paradise people, look at your bin, and think twice before filling it!