Letter of the Day | NSWMA talking garbage in Coopers Hill
Published:Monday | July 2, 2018 | 12:00 AM
THE EDITOR, Sir:
As I write, there has been no garbage collection in Coopers Hill, St Andrew, in three weeks. Most household garbage receptacles can hold a week's worth of garbage. What do you think happens to uncollected garbage after a week? What do you think people start to do with their garbage in the face of no collection?
The NSWMA's stated tag line reads: 'Jamaica's Beauty is Our Duty.' I am convinced that they either don't understand their own tag line or that they are dishonest.
This is not the first time that we've had long stretches of time where garbage has not been collected. It is not even the second time. Or the third time. On one occasion, I reached out to the NSWMA via Twitter, pleading for some relief. It had been weeks since the last collection. The response to me on Twitter was this: "Coopers Hill will be cleaned tomorrow."
I found the use of the word "cleaned" curious. Sure enough, the following day, a truck came and collected the garbage. But let's rewind to the intervening weeks where garbage had not been collected. During those weeks, residents, no doubt faced with mounting bags of garbage, resorted to the very unfortunate practice of dumping their waste in an ad hoc, informal dump on the side of road. It grew and grew and attracted more and more garbage.
My garbage was collected, but that ad hoc dump on the side of the road, which appeared as a direct result of the NSWMA's failure to do their job was left and one more eyesore and health hazard on our beautiful island was born.
PROBLEM 'FIXED'
The NSWMA had 'fixed' my problem by collecting my garbage (eventually), but they had not 'solved' the problem and they certainly were not living up to their own tag line by making Jamaica's beauty their duty.
If the NSWMA was really a problem solver and not a problem fixer, here's what they would do:
1 They would collect garbage regularly and predictably. That way, householders would be able to plan accordingly by building bigger receptacles and packaging their waste for the longer term and not panic and resort to dumping on the roadside.
2 They would place community skips strategically so that people wouldn't feel compelled to dump on roadsides.
KELLY MCINTOSH