Councillor blames construction industry for illegal dumps
Published:Tuesday | November 16, 2021 | 12:09 AMAinsworth Morris/Staff Reporter
NEVILLE WRIGHT, councillor for the Trench Town division, blames the booming multimillion-dollar construction industry and persons in different divisions for illegal dumps now piled on some areas connected to Maxfield Avenue in St Andrew.
The illegal dumps are located along Barnes Lane, Moore Street, Duff Street and Raphael Street, also Avondale Avenue located in the division neighbouring Wright’s.
Speaking at the Kingston and St Andrew Municipal Corporation’s monthly meeting held at Jamaica Conference Centre on Tuesday, Wright said, “The reality is that for example, along the Maxfield strip... some of that garbage that NSWMA is being called upon to collect is not generated within Maxfield space.”
He added: “Those of you who traverse Maxfield Avenue, just look on your right when you’re going up, if you’re going up Maxfield or left going down, you will see an enormous amount of construction and other dump that has taken place there in recent times; recent as in the last six weeks.”
Wright said parts of the Trench Town division are being used as a transfer station.
“People collect money from business operators to discard the garbage. The garbage does not end up at Riverton, but it end up along Maxfield Avenue, so probably that compactor that would have picked up half-a-load on Maxfield is then filled before it reach the bottom of Maxfield with garbage that is not generated within Maxfield,” he said.
He calls for more enforcement to take place in the city against the illegal dumpers.
“When it comes to the issue of enforcement ... it’s a very serious issue. It’s something that is needed. It’s pointless with [the National] Solid Waste Management Authority crying out saying, ‘we don’t have the resources. We don’t have this. We don’t have that’, when in truth and in fact, people who should be doing better, and who should know better are doing the very thing that ought not to be done and making it look bad on people within communities such as the ones that I represent,” he said.
Wright further stated that, “Matters that we have had to take pictures, being in touch with Solid Waste [Management Authority] trying to get them to enforce the rules and the fact of the matter is that none of that waste is generated within the Trench Town division or Whitfield division. They are all from further uptown where people are putting up multi-storey complexes and there’s no care, no regards whatsoever.”