Independence City, Edgewater residents hope for improvement in garbage collection
Published:Wednesday | April 6, 2022 | 12:08 AMRuddy Mathison/Gleaner Writer
Despite efforts by the National Solid Waste Management Authority (NSWMA) to beef up garbage collection in the Independence City and Edgewater communities in Portmore, residents say they are sceptical about whether the process will continue on a consistent basis.
The NSWMA, after widespread public outrage by residents about the pace of garbage collection, which led to a massive pile-up of garbage in the area, last week cleared the backlog and pledged to do weekly collection going forward.
Edgewater resident, Dannette, said the pace at which the authority collected the garbage is concerning and it is hardly likely that there will be any improvements.
“We suffered for quite a while with huge piles of garbage in our yards before they came last Wednesday and did some collection. My fear is that this is a one-off thing and things will get back to where it was,” she told The Gleaner.
“The collection is very inconsistent. I have been experiencing this problem for quite a while,” said Drayan, a resident of Independence City.
“Right now I have five drums full of garbage in my yard, and I have to keep adding containers. They come when they feel like, and use the excuse of not having enough trucks. This is very bad for us who are paying our property taxes,” he added.
Gerald Jennings, who has been living in Independence City since 1969 but spends a lot of his time overseas, said the problem has got worse over the past month or so when no garbage collection was done and householders started experiencing hardships with piles of garbage in their yards.
NO CONSISTENCY
“Even though they come and do collection last week, after a month, we are not sure if there will be any consistency, we can only hope that it improves,” Jennings told The Gleaner.
Councillor for the Independence City division of the Portmore Municipal Council, Courtney Edwards, agreed that there have been some challenges, but added that the problem was not as severe in Independence City as it is in other areas.
“We were used to the weekly collection, but this has fallen apart. We have been asking for night collections to offset the backlog,” he disclosed, adding that he has had dialogue with representatives of NSWMA and was assured that more trucks will be added to bring the complement from eight to 14.
“Yes, we are facing difficulties and that’s not where we want to be, but we have spoken to the residents, where they can get an extra bin they are advised to do so until the situation improves,” he said.