Garbage gully - Jamaicans urged to take ownership of role in refuse clean-up

Jamaicans appear to suffer from a cultural defect that is reflected in their widescale acceptance that it is somebody else’s responsibility to tidy up after them.

Audley Gordon, executive director of the National Solid Waste Management Authority (NSWMA), is convinced that this is the reason for the continued illicit dumping of garbage in gullies across the island and failure to use receptacles when they are provided.

This is the reason for a build-up of garbage in the Sandy Gully, where mature trees, remnants of old refrigerators, mattresses and animal carcasses dominate the landscape for most of the year, with little disturbance.

Gordon was responding to questions about plans for the section of the bridge in the vicinity of Weymouth Drive in the Corporate Area and along Spanish Town Road. The cleaning of the gully is the responsibility of the National Works Agency, but Communication and Customer Services Manager Stephen Shaw, who returns to work from leave yesterday, cited ignorance of the problem.

“I can’t answer right now because you would have seen something that I haven’t seen and I don’t have any information, so I would have to get that and then get back to you,” Shaw told The Gleaner on Sunday.

However, Gordon, who heads the agency tasked with the responsibility of collecting and properly disposing of solid waste across Jamaica, weighed in on the matter, lamenting that many Jamaicans actually believe that by dumping garbage at will, any and everywhere, they are contributing to job creation.

He said that in countries that are doing well at solid waste management, their success is due to the acceptance that this is a collective responsibility.

“Whether it was achieved through a legal framework, with enforcement over time, or it was through public education carried out over time in an intense and deliberate manner, whatever the strategy, the people played their part. So you don’t see people in those jurisdictions throwing things though car window. You don’t see people just walking and littering the place,” he said.

Proper waste management

The success achieved in these countries begins with separation and management of solid waste, which is then properly containerised at the source, until the truck arrives to pick it up, he added.

“So we have to change the conversation in 2020 from a situation where we say there is a National Solid Waste Management Authority to deal with it. We all have a duty to manage that solid which we are responsible for generating, and we must not see this as a burden but rather, as a social responsibility, our contribution to the development of our country,” said Gordon.

He also argued that self-interest in keeping the immediate environs clean should be high on the agenda of all well-thinking persons, even as he admitted that the NSWMA must uphold its end of the bargain.

“When we feed the rats by throwing out food and meat in the garbage, leptospirosis won’t necessarily affect the NSWMA crew who comes to collect it or the people in the office. It is your, our children’s health which is at risk,” he reasoned.

“When we make proper arrangements to move our bulky waste and they stay on our property and water settles in them, the mosquitoes bite your children and they get dengue, chik-V or the Zika virus. It is our own family that is affected.”

Civic-mindedness must be brought back into the equation, Gordon insisted, pointing out that people who dwell on gully banks and other informal, inappropriate settlements are not the only ones who contribute to the garbage accumulation in gullies. The NSWMA writes an average of 200 tickets per month and some of these go to people who drive up and empty their rubbish into the gullies, far removed from where they live.

“We can’t have enough enforcement officers everywhere, and it is difficult to go around chasing down nasty practices, but we do enforce,” the NSWMA boss conceded. “We can do more, but we need enough resources and the truth is, we don’t have enough boots on the ground across Jamaica, so we need to improve there, and we are to see how we can improve that in 2020.”