Agency lashes Sav for poor garbage disposal

Karrie Williams, Gleaner Writer

WESTERN BUREAU:Regional Operations Manager of the National Solid Waste Management Authority (NSWMA), Eifert Daley, is calling on residents of Savanna-la-Mar, Westmoreland, to practise better garbage-disposal habits, claiming they have been putting too much pressure on the NSWMA's resources.

Daley identified the residents of Darling Street and Seaton Street as primary offenders and called on the Westmoreland Parish Council to help to educate residents on better garbage-disposal habits.

"We need the residents who are watching us on TV to understand what their job is also. I cannot understand when I come down Great Georges Street and look at Seaton Crescent, bags are on the walls as if it is so pretty and beautiful for a resident's wall to be adorned by bags in the morning. We have to tell the residents of the parish they cannot go on behaving like that," he said during the last regular monthly meeting of the Westmoreland Parish Council.

He said the improper disposal had resulted in funds which were slated to be spent in rural areas, having to be channelled towards maintaining cleanliness in the capital town.

"We who live in the bushes of eastern Westmoreland and other places of western Westmoreland also need these funds for work to be done, but we are concentrated into a town centre because of the bad behaviour of the citizens that are here and wasting too much resources here, so we to break the resources, we have to let the people understand ... we have limited funds to spend," he continued.

Daley said he needed the help of the municipal police to tackle the town's garbage-management woes and called on the parish council to be more vigilant. With respect to commercial waste, he said sugar cane vendors were among the worst perpetrators in the town. He also urged the parish council to assign municipal officers to apprehend the culprits.

"I need the help of the council as it relates to regulating the town. I have no additional body to do enforcement. We have to depend on the municipal police, who are officers that can prosecute, so we need assistance in that regard," he said.

In responding to Daley, councillor of the South Savanna-la-mar division, Milton Miles, said residents were aware of how to package their garbage, but were at a disadvantage due to the haphazard collection service provided by the NSWMA.

"We instruct our residents to bag their garbage. In the Seaton Crescent area, they bag the garbage but when they leave it on the ground, the dogs tear it up. They put them out each morning, but sometimes they are there for two (to) three days. If they put it in the yard and wait till the truck comes, when the truck comes at 10 o'clock in the night blowing, blowing, blowing (horns), sometimes some of them are in their nightie and have to keep running out with the garbage," Miles said.