Go Lean…Caribbean

Go Lean Commentary

“I’ve recently been placed in charge of garbage … so when you think of garbage, think of me”. – Dialogue from 1988 Movie “Coming to America“; see Appendix VIDEO below.

Garbage has often played a role in movements and revolutions for societal change. For example, Martin Luther King had gone to Memphis, Tennessee in support of African-American Garbage Workers protesting for higher wages and better working conditions when he was gunned down on April 4, 1968. That action transformed America and modern society throughout the world. See the story relating this here: http://www.atu900.org/memphis-sanitation-workers/.

Perhaps the business of ‘garbage’ can transform society … once again. This time in the Caribbean.

“One man’s trash is another man’s treasure”.

The book Go Lean…Caribbean posits that there is a need to re-focus, re-boot, and optimize the engines of commerce, security and governance so as to make the Caribbean a better place to live, work and play for all. The art-and-science of garbage (solid waste) collection affects all 3 areas.

The Go Lean book calls for the optimization of these 3 engines (economic, security and governing) for the Caribbean region:

• Economics – Jobs, business models, industrial neighborhoods constitute the economic dimensions of this industry. Overall the roadmap calls for the optimization of the economic engines in order to grow the regional economy to $800 Billion GDP and create 2.2 million new jobs. The art-and-science of garbage collection have often involved a substantial labor force. Due to the undesirable nature of the work (outdoor, odor, unclean conditions), these jobs have often paid a premium compared to other manual labor jobs. Now there is the chance to employ more automation.
• Security – Public Health issues are involved in the disposal of garbage in any community; there is the need for technocratic deliveries of this feature of the Social Contract. Historically the garbage collection industry have attracted organized crime figures; bullies abound. There is therefore the constant need to monitor and mitigate these risks and threats on the community and public safety.
• Governance – Garbage collection is always in the sphere of government, even though many municipalities may outsource to service providers with contracts of different length and dimensions. Corruption (briberies, kickbacks, etc.) have often been associated with such contracts. There is therefore the need to optimize governmental engines in the execution of this required municipal service.

This commentary therefore recommends the adoption of more automated garbage collection systems in the Caribbean region. This does not refer to a complete robotic, cybernetic or cyborg system, but rather systematic tools to aid productivity for a minimal staff – do more with less. See the recommended “systems” here:

Encyclopedic Reference: Garbage trucks
Garbage truck or dustcart refers to a truck specially designed to collect municipal solid waste and haul the collected waste to a solid waste treatment facility such as a landfill. Other common names for this type of truck include trash truck in the United States, and rubbish truck, bin wagon, dustbin lorry, bin lorry or bin van elsewhere. Technical names include waste collection vehicle and refuse collection vehicle. These trucks are a common sight in most urban areas.

There are 3 primary types of waste collection vehicles:

• Front loaders
• Rear loaders
• Side loaders

Secondarily, these types of trucks are also deployed: Pneumatic collection, Grapple trucks, and Roll-offs. [Our focus is on the Side Loaders:]

Side loaders
Side loaders are loaded from the side, either manually, or with the assistance of a joystick-controlled robotic arm with a claw, used to automatically lift and tip wheeled bins into the truck’s hopper. Lift-equipped trucks are referred to as automated side loaders, or ASL’s. Similar to a front-end loader, the waste is compacted by an oscillating packer plate at the front of the loading hopper which forces the waste through an aperture into the main body and is therefore compacted towards the rear of the truck.^[6] An Automated Side Loader only needs one operator, where a traditional rear load garbage truck may require two or three people,^[7] and has the additional advantage of reducing on the job injuries due to repetitive heavy lifting. Due to these advantages, ASL’s have become more popular than traditional manual collection. Typically an Automated Side Loader uses standardized wheeled carts compatible with the truck’s automated lift.^[8]

Source:Wikipedia Online Encyclopedia – Retrieved 10-22-2015 from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garbage_truck#Side_loaders

[Automated garbage collection require that residents ([the public)] collaborate by lining up domestic garbage bins at the road side – on the correct day. Collaboration (sharing) is therefore a required community ethos.]

<<< Sample-Example Photos from Miami-Dade County, Florida >>>>

This is such a big deal that the term “heavy-lifting” would even be appropriate.

This is a matter of community ethos, defined as the fundamental character or spirit of a culture; the underlying sentiment that informs the beliefs, customs, or practices; dominant assumptions of a people. The key community ethos in this case is the new [professional] practice of turn-around strategies. The Go Lean book (Page 33) defines “turn-around” as including recycling and demolitions. Recycling revenues can thus offset garbage collection costs; as metals (and other materials) can be salvaged as “scrap”; even rubber and plastic have prospects for recycling, resulting in minimal garbage/waste to be buried in landfills. (This business model of Automated Side Loading – or ASL – systems specifies a larger staff at solid waste processing/sorting centers).

With the current community ethos, and politics, there is no way that such systems, as depicted in the foregoing source, can be introduced in the Caribbean region. But if given a chance, these deployments can facilitate a big “turn-around” – identified as a new community ethos. This new focus on the “turn-around” community ethos appears on the surface to be a win-win for all involved, but a more careful examination highlights some serious economic, security and governing obstacles/issues; such as:

1. Jobs will be loss – traditionally only one driver/operator is assigned to a truck.
2. Residents may not cooperate – the garbage canisters have to be moved out to the street edge.
3. Unorganized Addresses/routing – Trucks must work in routes; canisters must be labeled by address.

The book Go Lean…Caribbean, serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU) with the charter to facilitate jobs in the region and to optimize security and governing engines. Addressing these above 3 issues, the Go Lean/CU roadmap provides these solutions:

Jobs
Early in the Go Lean book, the responsibility to create jobs was identified as an important function for the CU with this pronouncement in the Declaration of Interdependence (Pages 14):

xxvi.  Whereas the Caribbean region must have new jobs to empower the engines of the economy and create the income sources for prosperity, and encourage the next generation to forge their dreams right at home, the Federation must therefore foster the development of new industries… In addition, the Federation must invigorate the enterprises related to existing industries … – impacting the region with more jobs.

The Go Lean book also details the principle of job multipliers, how certain industries are better than others for generating multiple indirect jobs down the line for each direct job on a company’s payroll. The Go Lean… Caribbean book details the creation of 2.2 million direct/indirect jobs in the region during the 5-year roadmap, including income from entrepreneurial hustles. (This business model from ASL systems specifies a larger staff at solid waste processing/sorting centers).

The subject of job creation – not an easy topic as governmental administrations always pursue this goal – has been directly addressed and further elaborated upon in these previous blog/commentaries:

Residential Assimilation
How to sell an idea to the whole population, to get them to assimilate new directives and mandates? This need was addressed even in the theme of this roadmap to elevate Caribbean society, with the word: “lean“. The word is presented as a noun, a verb and an adjective. For this commentary, we consider the definition as a verb. The people and institutions are urged to lean-in (incline in opinion, taste, or desire) and embrace the values, hopes and dreams of this roadmap, this integrated brotherhood of neighbors.

This urging is a methodical process. The CU will expand the Media Industrial Complex (broadcast, internet streaming, print, school/youth indoctrination, etc.) in the region so as to communicate, induce, influence and incentivize good behavior, preferred habits and best-practices. Consider for example, how mobile phones have easily been assimilated in the region. This is not just a product of good marketing and advertising, but the obvious appreciation of better products; better “mousetraps”.

The subject of forging change in the region has been directly addressed and further elaborated upon in these previous blog / commentaries:

Address Organization
As depicted in the foregoing photos, there is a basic infrastructure that must be in place for the societal change that is being advocated in this commentary, that of employing Automated Side Loading (ASL) garbage trucks/collection. The change is: street names and house numbers.

Despite how simple this might appear, this standard is not normal for all of the Caribbean. While Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Island utilize the US Postal Service (USPS) and their addressing standards (think Zip Codes), this is not the case for the other 28 Caribbean member-states.

The quest of the Go Lean is therefore simple in this regards: to re-boot mail operations for the region by introducing and implementing the Caribbean Postal Union (CPU). This agency will NOT be modeled after the USPS, but rather the CPU will embrace the better models in logistics (Amazon, Alibaba, etc.). Mail delivery and garbage collection all require optimized address organization and route logistics.

The subject of optimizing Caribbean logistics has been directly addressed and further elaborated upon in these previous blog / commentaries:

While the book was not written with garbage collection in mind, the principles there in applies to most industries and domestic endeavors. As such, the adoption of these new community ethos, plus the executions of the following strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies will foster the elevation of Caribbean society in general; and the “turn-around” industries specifically:

The CU will foster industrial developments in support of local economies. This is part of the art-and-science of “turn-around” industries. These efforts are ideal for the Go Lean roadmap’s plan for Self-Governing Entities, which are bordered grounds set aside from local municipal authorities and governed at the federal level only. While these industrial developments may more preferably feature sites like high-tech R&D campuses, medical parks, and technology bases, they can also include low-tech options like recycling facilities, scrap-metal junkyards and landfills. So the Go Lean roadmap covers high-tech jobs in the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) fields and also Blue Collar dirty jobs. There is room for all in the new Caribbean.

Everyone in the Caribbean is hereby urged to lean-in to this roadmap for change, residents and governments alike. The Go Lean/CU promoters will push hard (messaging) for the needed changes, employing both bottoms-up and top-down strategies. This commentary also advocates working to get the community ethos to take hold; all this earnest effort will be a waste unless people are moved to change … permanently. So we must use all effective tools – best-practices – to forge the required change.

This serious role of garbage collection is therefore an example of heavy-lifting for the Go Lean movement.

The quest to change the Caribbean is more complex than just picking up the trash. But our communities’ willingness to adapt to these changes, is indicative of the willingness to adapt to other societal changes. This is how to re-boot the Caribbean. This is the mandate of the Go Lean roadmap: to elevate the region, to make our homelands a better place to live, work and play. 🙂

Download the free e-Book of Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

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Appendix VIDEO: Coming To America Garbage  – https://youtu.be/RVVhvr_PXG4

Published on Sep 12, 2014 – Movie: Coming to America; Category: People & Blogs; License: Standard YouTube License. See trailer of the movie here: https://youtu.be/PWMJRzg8Smc