The foreshore in Honiara is polluted, unsightly debris and garbage gets washed down during torrential downpour.
The foreshore should be the pride of any capital city, examples include Suva, Port Villa and Apia. Our capital city Honiara has a long way to go, and all stakeholders need to band together and find a way to address the unsightly pollution along the foreshores of Honiara.
Solomon Ports is taking the lead in managing the pollution streaming out from Honiara.
As part of its Green Port vision, Solomon Ports has installed buoys and barriers just outside the Mataniko river mouth, which will extend further across the Honiara Central Market soon.
Solomon Port says that the barriers will be used to trap plastic wastes and rubbish coming out from the Mataniko river and along the Honiara coastline.
“We encourage people travelling at sea along the Honiara coastline to stop dumping plastic wastes into our ocean, lets work together to keep our ocean clean and safe,” Solomon Ports said in a statement.
Urban coastal development is a challenge for many cities around the world, but there are also many important lessons for us to draw from. Infrastructure plans, particularly in Honiara, need to accommodate the growing population. Without proper design of drainage and sewage systems, Honiara will not be able to control the level of pollution that we see today.
In the run-up to the 2023 Pacific Games the government needs to be serious in addressing this problem, otherwise the fondest memories of athletes would be the unsightly foreshore of Honiara.