Drum a Di Gate initiative kicks off in Jones Town

The National Solid Waste Management Authority (NSWMA), in partnership with Hardware and Lumber (H&L), has donated 50 drums to the Jones Town community in Kingston.

The drums were distributed at a handover ceremony on Tuesday at the Jones Town Primary School. They are part of the Drum a Di Gate initiative, which is aimed at encouraging citizens to dispose of their garbage properly while reducing breeding sites for mosquitoes and rodents.

This is the first distribution of drums to the MPM region which encompasses Kingston and St Andrew, St Catherine and St Thomas.

Director of operations at the NSWMA, Aretha McFarlane, said they are committed to weekly collections, with the day of pick-up being Fridays. She is asking the Jones Town residents to offer support in policing their community and monitoring the garbage situation.

One resident, who requested anonymity, said garbage trucks have recently started to make regular trips to the community, but before that, she used to burn her garbage. Another resident, who also wanted to remain anonymous, said her community members are damaging the receptacles, which makes it hard to dispose of garbage.

“We used to have them (receptacles) but them destroyed them. Receptacles were for organic waste, plastic waste and trash, but they destroyed them. They steal them and have them in their yard or mash them up,” she told The Gleaner.

The executive director of NSWMA, Audley Gordon, said the residents need to play their part to protect the investments (receptacles) when they are made. He said when receptacles are built, they are damaged not long after, so drum distribution is now the main concern.

“Fifty drums are not by any means adequate; it needs more than 50, but 50 is an excellent start,” he told The Gleaner.

Gordon said the Drum a Di Gate initiative strives to change the behavioural patterns of the public towards littering. This includes encouraging the public to refrain from throwing garbage from vehicles, which is a popular practice among many Jamaicans.

“We are all over with other initiatives – we push composting, we push bag it up, we’re pushing the triage: reduce, reuses and recycle. It’s not just us alone, you have JET (Jamaica Environment Trust) that pushes the clean-up too,” Gordon said.

He added that the NSWMA has a small number of enforcement officers in the country, but they have to make do because of their small budget. The officers write tickets to citizens, but the fine is cheap. However, Gordon hinted that bigger fines are coming.

“We have good reason to believe that in short order, fines are coming that will hurt; that people will be afraid to do things because it will touch their pockets,” he said.

Member of parliament for St Andrew Southern, Mark Golding, said he is thankful to the NSWMA and H&L because the community has a serious garbage problem.

H&L will be supplying 200 drums per month for a year to the NSWMA’s Drum a Di Gate initiative.