MONTEGO BAY, St James — Executive director of the National Solid Waste Management Authority (NSWMA) Audley Gordon is urging individuals who use social media to highlight shortcomings in garbage collection to give him a call instead. He is concerned that the negative posts will harm the country’s image and do not, at times, accurately reflect corrective measures his team has taken.

“When you upload a picture you create a lot of excitement with that, but it doesn’t necessarily get you the result,” Gordon cautioned.

“If you call us — my number is public, everybody has my number — you would get better results. But moreso, you don’t give the impression internationally that Jamaica is buried under garbage; because it is not true and that is what we are doing when every little thing we post,” he lamented.

He explained that the NSWMA is often already working to clean areas being highlighted, making those posts unnecessary.

“Sometimes you take the picture 9:00 o’clock and if you were going back 10:00 o’clock you wouldn’t see the garbage, because we would have cleaned it; but you’ve already done the damage,” he chided.

The NSWMA boss acknowledged that he may receive some backlash for his comments but said it was worth it to get his message across that care must be taken to not damage Jamaica’s image unnecessarily.

“I know what is going to be said, ‘him a make excuse, him a cry, him a this.’ This here is our country; we all live here. If we feel that the best way to treat our country is to project it to the world as the nastiest place, there are two things I say about that: ‘First it is not true!’” he declared.

“We are moving tonnes of garbage every month out the space but garbage will come back because we generate it. What we have to appeal for is better management of solid waste,” added Gordon.

He went back to his often-repeated appeal for individuals to play their part in keeping the country clean, and not view it as solely the job of the State agency.

Gordon pointed out that improper waste management is so widespread across the country that rubbish can be seen in a lot of places that are not regularly visited.

“We are not a nasty people, a we say cleanliness! And it’s important that all of us see Jamaica’s beauty as our collective duty,” Gordon declared.

However, despite his appeal, he acknowledged that there is room for improvement in the way the NSWMA engages with the public, especially when internal challenges impact its ability to be effective.

“We are also stepping up our communication because if we are down for whatever reason, we have a duty at the NSWMA to contact the communities to make sure that we communicate to them that we are down, why we are down and give them something to hold on to,” he explained.

“People are basically reasonable once you are talking to them, once they are hearing something, so we have to do some work on that end,” he said.

Executive director of the National Solid Waste Management Authority, Audley Gordon, urged individuals to call him instead of posting grouses about garbage collection on social media.