THE issue of irregular garbage collection in sections of St Ann was a sore point for two councillors during Thursday’s monthly meeting of the municipal corporation.

The councillors told the meeting that they feel neglected and ignored by the National Solid Waste Management (NSWMA) due to the poor level of service being meted out to residents of Calderwood and Borrobridge.

Councillor of the Calderwood Division, the People’s National Party’s Paul McFarlane, told the meeting that the problem of garbage pile-up has started to affect some schools in his division.

“I have two schools which have been suffering from a lack of garbage collection — Murray Mount Primary and Higgins Land Primary. For months no garbage collection, and these are children we are dealing with. There should always be cleanliness on school compounds,” argued McFarlane

He alleged that repeated attempts to contact NSWMA have failed and he is at his “wits’ end” with the continuous complaints from representatives of the schools.

“As the councillor for the area I’ve been calling NSWMA and they haven’t answered and these are public schools,” added McFarlane.

In the meantime councillor of the Borrobridge Division, the Jamaica Labour Party’s Marline Thompson-Kenyon, told the meeting that a garbage skip in Cave Valley is now a major concern.

“The garbage skip in Cave Valley has been in a very terrible condition, infested by rats and other rodents, and that is understandable because the garbage has not been collected [for sometime],” said Thompson-Kenyon.

She charged that motorists who drive past the skip throw their garbage in the general area, “and I have to pay people to push the garbage from off the road and also asking people to try and capture even the licence plate of those doing the dumping.”

According to Thompson-Kenyon, “The situation is really bad and something needs to be done about it.”

Responding to the concerns of the councillors, chief public health inspector for the parish Leroy Scott urged them to tell residents in their division about proper garbage storage to prevent infestation in the event that collection is irregular.

“Some garbage doesn’t necessary need to go to the landfill, we can create our own landfills, if we have land to do so. Also what we call wet garbage — stuff that comes from the vegetable and waste food matter — can easily be composed. It is best for us to separate our cans, plastic, and paper from the wet garbage that is going to decompose, so that which will be left will not create any nuisance at all,” said Scott.

“It is also the responsibility of the communities that generate garbage to ensure it is properly stored because a lot of the issues surrounding the attraction of rats and flies is because of improper storage,” Scott added.

Meanwhile chief executive officer of the municipal corporation Jennifer Brown-Cunningham told the councillors that she will be writing to the NSWMA on the matter.

“Please provide us with a list of areas in your division that needs attention so we can write to NSWMA, because since they haven’t answered your calls we have to try another avenue,” said Brown-Cunningham.

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