AUDLEY Gordon, executive director of the National Solid Waste Management Authority (NSWMA), is reiterating his call for stiffer fines for litterbugs, a measure long promised by the Government.

According to Gordon, stiff fines for breaches of Jamaica’s Anti-Litter Act backed by a good enforcement apparatus is needed as people should pay dearly for infractions in the public cleansing arrangement.

“And we must have the kind of enforcement apparatus to do that kind of investigative work, surveillance work, and to identify culprits and bring them to book,” said Gordon as he pointed to countries such as Singapore, Rwanda, and Sweden where there are strong laws for litterbugs.

“I’m saying we shouldn’t get to that kind of fines and enforcement for people to behave properly, but that’s where we are. Where we are requires a robust public education programme, it requires a significant improvement in the size of the fines that we currently have and it will require an expanded enforcement apparatus to include cameras and electronic surveillance, so that when people commit infractions, they can be located and they can be held to book,” Gordon told the
Jamaica Observer.

He was responding to fresh concerns about the volume of garbage being washed into gullies, rivers, streams, and into the ocean despite efforts by stakeholders to stem the flow.

Gordon argued that the problem will remain if Jamaicans do not take personal responsibility for proper disposal of their waste.

At present, the GraceKennedy Foundation (GKF), through its collaboration with The Ocean Cleanup, and Clean Harbours Jamaica (CHJ) Limited, has a pilot project to prevent waste from entering the Kingston Harbour.

The partners have pumped approximately US$4 million into the initiative over the past two years, but Gordon, while welcoming this and other clean-up initiatives, said these are just admitting the failure that is taking place.

“Cleaning up of the harbour would not be necessary if we were behaving good on land,” said Gordon.

“We are responsible for the solid waste that we generate, not the State, not the executive director for the NSWMA. Each individual is responsible for the solid waste that they generate and they have to do a better job in managing the waste until the truck comes. If you’re walking on the road, you’re drinking a bottle of water when you’re through, it’s not cool, it’s not right, it’s not decent to just drop the bottle. You should keep it on your person until you see a receptacle or until you’re home or wherever you can dispose of it responsibly. It is a duty of care that we have as a country,” said Gordon.

The NSWMA head argued that ever since Jamaica literally abandoned civics in schools it seems no one remembers that the country belongs to all of us, and all of us have a duty to make it beautiful and to keep it clean.

“Without the people participation, without the average person taking responsibility for the solid waste that they generate, we will continue to have the problem because no matter how much you try from the NSWMA, there are more people out there, and the 4,000 of us at the NSWMA can’t keep Jamaica clean if the two point odd million decide to dirty it up,” he said.

He said that convincing people that they have a duty of care to the country will require a robust and sustained public education programme that goes into schools, homes, churches, business places, community centres — anywhere people are.

“We have to be there with them on social media, traditional media, the billboards have to be up there. We have to do town hall meetings — every opportunity we get we have to keep this public education going, at least for a good five to 10 years until it’s registered. You can’t just do a piecemeal thing where you just run a programme for a few months — a pilot programme — and you stop, no, it has to be sustained,” stressed Gordon.

He told the
Observer that despite the ongoing improvement in the NSWMA’s fleet, there is still a need for personal responsibility.

Turning to the issue of bulky household waste, which often ends up in waterways, Gordon admitted that this is a challenge for the agency.

“It is one you see showing up in a lot of these mini dumps all across the island where some people have an old fridge, or an old stove, old mattress, and they just carry it and dump it and just give it to someone to just dump it at the nearest open lot or wherever they can dump it where they find convenient.

“It’s not right, it’s not safe, it’s not healthy. I would ask people to desist from doing that; make proper arrangement to remove your bulky waste. It’s a small investment to pay to just let somebody just take it to the disposal site on your behalf,” he said.

He pointed out that in other jurisdictions bulky waste is treated as a private arrangement which people would take to a disposal site and pay for getting rid of it.

“In Jamaica, we do scheduled bulky waste collection from time to time and there are also people who take their bulky waste directly to the disposal site and they pay a tipping fee and dispose of their bulky waste.”

While accepting that the NSWMA could be better at communicating to residents when the bulky waste would be picked up in their area, Gordon said it will be in a better position to do scheduled collections in another couple of months.

“Remember that the Government promised us 100 trucks, which we got 50 already and the next 50, some of it is already shipped [and] on the way to Jamaica, and some will be shipped later. So out of that 50, which is the second batch, there are 10 tipper trucks and those will help us with the bulky waste because bulky waste can’t be carried on the compactor.

“The compactor is mechanised to crush particular stuff, so we couldn’t put the old fridge and stuff in the compactor; tipper trucks will help us tremendously in moving bulky waste to disposal sites. We’re hoping, once we have the tipper trucks in hand, we’ll be able to advertise more, in terms of our schedule,” said Gordon.

The NSWMA head’s comment came in the wake of a plea from CEO of GKF Caroline Mahfood for Jamaicans to take responsibility for the proper disposal of their waste.

“At the end of the day, we don’t want to continue the never-ending clean-up that is taking place right now. This is really disgraceful, and we really want Jamaicans, each person to play their role in disposing of their garbage properly,” said Mahfood.

She noted that so far, the US$4-million project to protect the harbour has resulted in barriers at seven of the 11 gullies surrounding the Kingston Harbour and the partners are now hoping to take on the remaining four.

“The four others we want to focus on include those in Hunt’s Bay, which includes ‘the beast’, Sandy Gully, which is one of the major polluters of the whole harbour. I expect this year we will target at least two of those,” added Mahfood as she welcomed the support of the recently installed Mayor of Kingston Andrew Swaby, who has endorsed a new partnership with the Kingston and St Andrew Municipal Corporation.

In the meantime, Swaby said the project is in keeping with his municipality’s mandate of keeping the city clean. He also urged the residents to help to keep the city clean.

“I want to say to the residents of Kingston and St Andrew that we ought to do better. We have to manage and dispose of our garbage in a way that is environmentally friendly. While we call upon the National Solid Waste Management Authority’s team to do more of taking up our debris, we have a civic duty to make sure that all our plastic bottles and waste are disposed of the correct way, not throwing them in gullies,” said Swaby.