THE Mayor and City Council (M&CC) is anticipating smooth Christmas season solid waste collection as payments to the council’s main garbage- collection contractors are up-to-date.

Former Georgetown Mayor Patricia Chase-Green had lamented, in 2018, what she said was the contractors using the Christmas season every year to hold the City Council to ransom.

The contractors have, in the past, however, denied that they deliberately take this stance and blamed council’s failure to deliver payments in a timely fashion.

Sitting down on the Guyana Chronicle’s online programme Vantage Point on Tuesday, Solid Waste Management Director, Walter Narine, said that things will be different this year.

“I speak with great confidence that we would not have a strike this Christmas season,” he said. He added that a 25 per cent increase in garbage is expected between November 15 and January 15, 2019. As such, the M&CC will assist during this period with its resources of garbage trucks and skip bins around the city; these, Narine estimated, will be enough.

“We have to cater for that and we have positioned ourselves for that, so the contractors are being paid to do their job but we have to complement that effort because of the excess garbage now,” he said.

“A lot of people already started cleaning up for Christmas; a lot of people already started to throw out old furniture and bring new ones and we will cater for that…they break down, they clean up, they chop down trees, everything.”

Skip bins are being rented as cheaply as $8,000 for 72 hours and the M&CC has already seen an increase in the bookings for the season.

In the last two weeks of December, collection in commercial areas will be “doubled up” to cater for an increase in shopping activity in the city.

At the same time, Narine reminded the public that there is no excuse to litter and in the case of no nearby bins,

He said: “I’ll ask each Guyanese to look within themselves, you’re passionate Guyanese; you’re a proud set of people, not because somebody will come and clean it up means you must create more work for them. They are also humans, they have kids too. So, do not litter. If you have something to throw away, if you don’t see a bin, take it with you…we have to be more patriotic and we have to understand that the actions that we’re doing presently are hurting the environment.”