AFTER five weeks of working to clear 450,000 truckloads of debris left behind by Hurricane Melissa, the National Solid Waste Management Authority (NSWMA) has announced that it has removed 15,000 truckloads thus far and is expecting operations to be fast-tracked with the Government’s donation of 10 tipper trucks.

“With the size hurricane that we got (Category 5), you will have a lot of debris, and the NSWMA not only started our debris management programme, but, as we speak, 15,000 loads [have been] moved already with hundreds of thousands more to go,” Executive Director Audley Gordon said Tuesday.

Gordon, who was thanking the Government for its contribution to bolstering the clean-up process of communities worst-affected by Hurricane Melissa, said the 10 trucks were highly appreciated because of the tedious task ahead.

He was speaking at the commissioning ceremony of the additional tipper trucks at the NSWMA head office in St Andrew. The trucks are valued at almost $200 million.

“This offer of 10 trucks is more than welcome at this time. I want to thank the Government for their decisiveness in making the funds available. We want to get the trucks out as directed by our PM [Prime Minister Dr Andrew Holness] and our minister [of Local Government Desmond McKenzie] into the field, like today. The thing about Christmas is that while the fun is going on, it generates more garbage and we have more need now around these times than we would have normally for capacity to take up garbage,” said Gordon.

He also notified Holness and McKenzie that while he was grateful, the agency still required more equipment to tackle the collection process.

Holness assured that he understood the task, noting that moving 4.8 million tonnes of debris was no easy feat. However, he said that the job was not insurmountable.

“I don’t want it to appear as if this is an impossible task. It is an overwhelming task, undoubtedly, with the resources that we have, but it is not an impossible task. What we are trying to do is to give the NSWMA the capacity to deal with these extreme circumstances of debris management caused by a disaster. So these trucks will be exclusively targeted to that. Therefore, the trucks that we had diverted initially to deal with the debris management will be returned into regular service,” he said.

To further quicken debris removal, Holness said that the Government has been in talks with the People’s Republic of China to facilitate the procurement of additional machinery that will be helpful to the clean-up process.

“The Government of China is also making donations of equipment and we have asked for certain kinds of equipment that will be used in debris management — excavators, front-end loaders and some other heavy equipment. Those heavy equipment will be placed in the custody of the JDF (Jamaica Defence Force), but they are technically owned by the NWA (National Works Agency). So we are using the resources that are coming either from your taxpayers’ money or what is donated to build capacity so that we are in a better position to respond to the next weather event,” Holness said and noted his intention to complete another procurement of trucks dedicated to debris management.

Holness added that the Government was in talks with the Urban Development Corporation to help with ridding debris from Black River, St Elizabeth, which was ravaged by the Category 5 storm, noting that it was a task greater than the NSWMA.

“Just to give some calm to the nerves of persons who may be thinking this might take us 10 years to clear the debris, a large part of the debris is organic, so that will fertilise the earth or we’ll create compost. So the trees that are fallen, provided they are not fallen on roadways or blocking access, those can wait until last. We will cut those, and some organic debris will take care of itself. What we’re going to be focusing on now would be the zinc, construction material, fallen light poles, wires, and the old furniture,” he said.