THE Kingston and St Andrew Corporation (KSAC) is now collecting garbage five days per week from a number of markets in the municipality, including those at Papine, Cross Roads, Constant Spring and downtown Kingston.

St William Grant Park and the Constant Spring and Redemption arcades are also on the list.

Kingston mayor Angela Brown Burke told the council meeting on Tuesday that it was thanks to a compacter truck presenetd as a gfit to the council by the city of Lewisham in England, and hailed the new collection schedule as a step towards controlling rodent infestation.

Brown Burke also thanked the Urban Development Corporation for a batch of garbage skips.

“The garbage skips in addition to the compacter goes a far way in helping us to carry out effective garbage collection and storage,” the mayor said.

Meanwhile, the mayor said that given the volume of garbage that was being collected weekly, the council was also exploring the possibilities of having the collected refuse manufactured into fertilisers or used to produce energy.

On another note, the mayor said that during clean-up operations conducted by the corporation on January 24 and 25, several shacks, stalls, paraphernalia, old refrigerators and unregistered handcarts were removed from the sidewalks.

“However, our children, our elederly and our disabled need to have a sidewalk to use, Brown Burke argued, defending the KSAC’s removal of the items.

She made it clear, however, that the handcarts were not destroyed.

“I gave some instructions to our officers not to destroy or dump handcarts but to impound them until owners comply,” Brown Burke said.

— Claudienne Edwards