CITY COUNCILOR, Sherod Duncan, on Monday tabled a motion at City Hall for a “comprehensive and coherent modern policy” of the city’s solid waste management, owing to the fact that the current one has been in place for almost 20 years.

Duncan’s motion, seconded by Councillor Akeem Peter, picked up the support of the majority of city councillors at the statutory meeting who agreed that there is need for such a policy at the moment. According to the motion, the need exists for such a plan especially in view of several setbacks, including the most recent suspension of contracts with the city’s two main garbage contractors.  Speaking on the motion, Duncan said: “We have been trying to achieve a modern city, befitting of a national capital city and I think we are lagging a lot behind in this regard. We are moving towards more consumption of goods and services which would mean more waste.”

He reasoned that composting, which is being pursued by Solid Waste Director, Walter Narine, has to be part of the strategy and not just something that City Hall pursues in an ad-hoc fashion.      Duncan also referred to the penalties attracting littering at the moment and the fact that in one year only 15 cases of littering were brought by the City Constabulary Department.

The policy should also cater for how City Hall collects solid waste and pay its contractors. “There are some months that we collected less solid waste and we’ve paid more to contractors. We have to rethink our whole approach to solid waste management. Is our city constabulary equipped to manage our litter bugs? Could we sustain a municipal court in which we are bringing just 15 cases a year?”      According to him, a comprehensive, integrated strategy would also take into consideration littering in a residential area, littering in the commercial district, and how well the constabulary is equipped. “There is also a disparity with who introduced the fines for littering?” Duncan noted, as he pointed out how the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has its own fines from the City Council.

“A comprehensive policy would have to reconcile the kinds of fines instituted between the city and EPA. Our laws would also have to be looked at. In one single instance in Chapter 28: 01 does it speak to littering? There needs to be a harmonising of our legislation.”      Duncan said it is also important that City Hall pays heed to how its strategy would fit in with government’s own plan and agenda for solid waste management.

After garnering support for the motion, the Markets and Public Health Committee will now have to review the matter. “Definitely I will be putting lots more flesh on this and I will be submitting a framework to them,” Duncan told Chronicle.
Meanwhile, the Solid Waste Director told the meeting yesterday that since City Hall’s two main garbage contractors withdrew their services, each household in the city has received clearance of their garbage once a week.

Still, he noted, there are some “wicked” folks who are dumping garbage on the parapets to make the council look bad. He encouraged councillors to report such instances immediately once they see it happening.  Town Clerk, Royston King maintained that the City Council did not terminate contracts with the garbage contractors but said based on the conditions in the contracts, M&CC viewed it as they were terminating their services.  He said with the help of the Solid Waste Department, which is covering the bulk of the work, City Hall is managing to do a “reasonable” job as far as garbage collection is concerned.