Give us until Christmas
NSWMA regional arm sets deadline to clear garbage backlog in St Mary, St Ann, Portland
PORT MARIA, St Mary — With the expectation that a number of its trucks now out of service will soon be up and running, the National Solid Waste Management Authority’s (NSWMA) regional arm has set a Christmas deadline to reduce garbage piled up in St Mary, St Ann, and Portland.
North Eastern Parks and Markets (NEPM) Waste Management Limited has responsibility for the collection and disposal of solid waste in those three parishes.
“The NSWMA in St Mary is tackling a growing backlog of uncollected garbage despite the challenges we are facing with some of our units out of operation,” parish representative Orville Black told the
Jamaica Observer recently.
“We have 22 units to serve these areas. However, some of them are down now and are being worked on, whereby they will be up in short order,” he added.
He estimated that they have already done about 76 per cent of the work and said they are adopting a strategic approach to clear the rest.
“We are not there as yet, but despite the challenges we have seen some improvements in our collection of garbage,” Black maintained.
With previously blocked roads once again accessible, the agency is now able to reach communities which were cut off after Hurricane Melissa.
“We can safely say that 95 per cent of these roads are cleared, and we were able to go into them and remove garbage,” Black noted.
He appealed to residents to be patient as his team tries to ensure the region is presentable in time for Yuletide.
“We are working overtime to ensure that not all but most of the garbage is cleared in time for the festive season,” Black said.
He reminded residents of their role in ensuring that the process is as efficient as possible.
“We would see garbage in the streets because the dogs would have gotten to them and people are continuously throwing their garbage in an already full skip. What they should do is to ensure that the garbage is not reachable for animals to get and have covered containers to put it in until the garbage is collected,” Black urged.
BLACK… despite the challenges we have seen some improvements in our collection of garbage (Photo: Ingrid Henry)
