Environmentalist wants stiffer littering penalties
Concerned about garbage in from gullies in Kingston harbour
BY KARYL WALKER Online editor walkerk@jamaicaobserver.com
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
HEAD of the Jamaica Environment Trust, (JET), Diana McCaulay is calling on the Government to enforce harsher penalties on litter bugs, especially those whose dispose of their solid waste in gullies.
McCaulay's call comes after recent rains have choked the Kingston harbour with tons of garbage from gullies.
"We have a huge solid waste problem in Jamaica. I am not aware of any implemented plans to deal with solid waste in Jamaica. We need stronger enforcement, stiffer penalties. The same people who throw their garbage in the gullies is the same people who get the job to clean it, so there is actually an incentive," a disgusted McCauley told the Observer.
Recently taken photographs of the Kingston harbour paint a stomach churning picture. Thousands of plastic drink bottles, car tires, dead dogs, plastic bags, styrafoam containers, diapers, used condoms and other forms of filth can be seen floating in the harbour.
Twenty One Corporate Area gullies all empty in the Kingston harbour.
"We are treating the gullies like cesspools and it all goes into the sea. They don't realise where it ends up or they don't care," McCauley said.
The effluent and garbage eventually end up in the Port Royal mangroves and on Refuge Cay in the harbour. The mangroves serve as a breeding ground for a wide variety of fish and play an important role in stemming climate change and maintaining bio-diversity as well as being effective shoreline defences against storms and hurricanes.
Refuge Cay is one of the top 10 breeding sites in the Caribbean for the endangered brown pelican.
 
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7/1/2010
@ John - Exactly!! And if some of us got a group together and just took a part of one item of the first three, and developed some meaningful advocacy as well as created solutions that involved partnership between public and private sector, we could completely reverse this problem within a matter of 5 years. This is yet another area where the corruption, breakdown in public services & lackadaisical attitudes on the part of the public has taken hold, but it does not have to be this way forever
7/1/2010
This is the kind of, “it happens there but affect us here” problem. Especially when it comes to climate change and the interference with biodiversity. There needs to be a “clean up tax” on bottled water; then make available recycling and garbage bins in those dire areas. I wonder if some of those people aware that boiling pipe water is a better alternative for bottled water. Little Jamaica is so populated in this age of “use and throw away,” that I can only imagine this garbage problem getting worst.
6/30/2010
Several dimensions to this problem:
1. Insufficient or no garbage collection services in depressed communities.
2. Lack of public education on the devastating effects of littering and pollution and how it affects *the public themselves.*
3. Inadequate *enforcement* of current anti-littering laws. The JCF needs a whole environmental protection unit.
4. There's a consistent skewed focus by Jamaicans on creating tougher laws as opposed to enforcing current laws. Complete waste of resources.
6/30/2010
It is very disgusting sight all over Jamaica to see garbage strewn allover the place especially the plastic water bottles,people just throw them from vehicle and makes theplace so tacky, something needs to be done,give the consumers money back for these bottles will help.
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