In 2022 Mr Audley Gordon, the executive director of the National Solid Waste Management Authority (NSWMA), did something unusual. He gave himself a two-year deadline to wipe out the garbage pile-up about which Jamaicans are always quarrelling.

If Mr Gordon meets his deadline it means that, from this year, the country’s municipalities, townships, roads, beaches, parks and markets will look like they were when Mr Desmond McKenzie was mayor of Kingston, and before him, the late Mr Ralph Brown.

Of course, we know that many factors, some of them monumental in nature, go into the equation to determine if deadlines are to be met. In this case, one of these tough asks was that of getting sufficient working trucks to handle the perennial problem of garbage collection.

We have had reason to commend Mr Gordon in this space for his courageous and enlightened approach to his job, and for seeming to take seriously the arduous task at hand, knowing fully well that the NSWMA can be a place where good intentions go to die.

We also have reason for optimism that elimination of the garbage pile-up, if not achieved this year, will be well on the way so that the long-suffering Jamaican people can get a measure of relief. A good part of this optimism is based on the acquisition of more trucks, the latest of which is a batch of 50 just commissioned into service.

The NSWMA’s fleet now boasts 165 new trucks, with the 50 latest additions coming at a cost of $1.3 billion. This is a massive outlay of resources that we hope will make a huge impact on our environment.

This is made more significant as we are told it was not financed by borrowing or grants, but as a result of the “effective and disciplined management of the economy” — in the words of Prime Minister Andrew Holness. He should add the sacrifices of the Jamaican taxpayer.

We have been assured that the newly acquired trucks include various types of equipment designed to handle several waste management needs, with crane trucks for lifting heavy loads, tipper trucks for transporting bulk waste, and scout trucks for accessing narrow roads.

Hopefully the Government is serious about its promise to expand the NSWMA’s capabilities further to implement a nationwide waste separation programme designed to encourage the separation of plastic and recyclable material from organic waste, making recycling efforts more efficient and economically viable.

This would be in keeping with current measures to deal with plastics, mainly the ban on single-use plastics, and the programme for the collection of plastic bottles around the country.

Mr Gordon will no doubt be anxious to get more trucks to help him meet his deadline. The estimated need is for another 50 trucks, and compactors to manage garbage disposal for the more than 4,000 communities islandwide.

The NSWMA will need to ramp up its public education programme on garbage disposal, given our penchant for throwing rubbish just about anywhere. It needs to start at the basic school level.

Older ones among us still remember the litter songs in primary school when children happily skipped around picking up rubbish and singing: “Bits of paper, bits of paper lying on the ground, lying on the round; it makes the place untidy, it makes the place untidy; pick them up, pick them up.”