Garbage pile-up upsets Tivoli Gardens residents
Audley Gordon, the executive director of the National Solid Waste Management Agency (NSWMA), is urging residents to practise patience, as the agency is undertaking clean-up efforts following the aftermath of Hurricane Beryl.
”We are trying to get on top of the Beryl debris. We are serving people doing fresh cutting [of trees] but we are being detained by the extra work. We are going ahead but we are going at a pace and we cannot go faster if people are throwing out extra garbage,” Gordon lamented.
Gordon explained that the agency, which is in charge of garbage collection across the island, has to engage the services of contractors to clear the debris caused by the lashing of the category 4 hurricane.
”We have had to engage other persons and a lot of persons [are] pruning trees now. That’s not the responsibility of the NSWMA, its residents [who] have to get their own disposal,” the NSWMA boss said. But residents of Tivoli Gardens in Kingston lament that there has been neglect by garbage collectors to clear waste from their community for the past three weeks. They argue that a plague of flies has been terrorising them, making their homes and daily life miserable.
“Di authorities need fi understand say round here overpopulated. We can’t live so; di fly dem out fi kill we off. It really bad, a the longest we ever ago without garbage a collect round here,” a shopkeeper expressed.
When the news team visited the community, dump trucks assisted by a back hoe were seen cleaning the community garbage lot.
”A the first it ever pile up pon we so. And fi make it worse, people from all bout just come and throw dem garbage round here too. Me woulda love if the authorities dem just collect the garbage all two time fi the week round here cause it really bad pon we,” a resident told THE STAR. When asked about the community, Gordon said that to his knowledge, there was no problem in Tivoli.
“We have pretty much corrected all the backlogs across the island. But we are just asking for patience and for people to be reasonable,” he said.