Tonga has a big rubbish problem and prosecuting careless people who throw rubbish in public places is the solution, believes the Director of the Ministry of Environment, Uilou Samani.

Litter-bugs will have to be punished, he says, if Tonga is to clean up its streets and seafront. "It is a big problem. There is solid waste on the streets, in the ocean, and every where. Diapers are dumped on the roadsides to be eaten by stray dogs, and old cars are left to rot in homes and on roadsides. Some beach fronts are turning into unofficial rubbish dumps for more diapers, plastic bags, broken down cars, refrigerators, old oil, old car batteries, electric transformers, and more." Uilou says unfortunately Tongans have come to accept rubbish as part of our landscape, including the many wrecked ships that are abandoned on the Nuku'alofa reefs.

A pa'anga $8 million rubbish management program is taking shape, funded by the Australian government. The Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer signed the project funding in December 2003 when he made a brief stop over in Nuku'alofa.

The old public dump at Popua will be closed down and moved to a new site located at an old quarry, Tapuhia, near the village of Vaini. At the new site there are proposals for a better management in the destruction of the different kinds of rubbish and to separate degradable from non-degradable rubbish.

Uilou said that the Popua dump was supposed to be closed down four years ago because it was already full to capacity, and became a health hazard to settlements nearly with houses only a few meters away from the edge of the dump.

There is a hope that with the new dump, all the villages in Tongatapu will be able to bring their rubbish to Vaini instead of just dumping them onto the bushes and onto beaches.

There is also a talk about the improvement of the rubbish collection method with more rubbish trucks. At the moment to have only one 15-year-old rubbish truck for the whole of Tongatapu is absurd, and an excuse for people to dump their rubbish anywhere.