By Telesha Ramnarine

HEAD of Solid Waste Management in Georgetown, Walter Narine, has said that citizens can expect an improved garbage collection service from next week owing to the fact that the new contractors who were hired lately are now more familiar with the territory.

With Puran Brothers Disposal Services no longer working with the City Council, the new contractors have been settling into a new routine over the past month or so, and have not been managing to complete their schedules on time, resulting in citizens having to leave their drums and barrels on the streets unsure of when the collectors would turn up.

Narine said he is aware of the difficulties that this can bring and has thus called a meeting with the new contractors to implore upon them the need to be timely in their collection. Even Cevons Waste Management, an old contractor, has also not been completing its schedule on time.

Commenting on the withdrawal of Puran Brothers, Narine offered: “Yes we miss Puran Brothers and it’s sad they are not with us but again, the council would have done everything in its power to engage them to come up with an amicable solution towards having them back and those negotiations broke down.

“It’s not that that we have closed the doors on Puran Brothers; we have given them a fair chance and extended ourselves to them because they have worked with us for 33 years but they didn’t see eye to eye with us in our negotiations and the work of the City must go on with or without Puran Brothers.”

Puran Brothers, though, is maintaining that the company cannot renew its contract with the City Council with figures for the next three years being lower than what they were currently working with.

MARKET AND COCONUT VENDORS

Meanwhile, market waste, especially in the environs of Bourda, along with an increase in coconut shells that are being dumped on just about any open space in the city, is significantly affecting the work of the council.

The situation is particularly existent on North Road, Alexander and Robb Streets where the market vendors are paying the social rejects to remove and dump their waste.

“The vendors do not even care to find out where they’re dumping it. They go right on North Road and dump their garbage or in front of Mike’s Pharmacy. This is ridiculous and totally unacceptable and the vendors are solely responsible for this,” Narine lamented in an interview with the Guyana Chronicle a few days ago.

The majority of the vendors who engage in this practice do not live in Georgetown but are merely here to sell their produce. As such, Narine is saying that they have no regard for the environs in which they operate daily. In fact, all they seem to be concerned about is that their garbage is being removed at a very minimal cost.

What especially makes this practice inexcusable is the fact that the market is being cleaned by sanitation workers who traverse with bins that the vendors can put their refuse in.

“But they’re not doing that. They want to accumulate all the waste and then at the end of the day’s sales, they give it to the rejects. We have a big static compactor that is one street away on Orange Walk, Ow man; can’t they ask these rejects or whoever to take their garbage there? It’s appalling to see what the vendors are contributing to our society.”

While noting that serious actions ought to be taken, Narine said his recommendation to the City Council has always been to place this set of vendors on Merriman Mall where they can be better controlled and managed.

“We cannot manage at their present location. They are so much on the road that vehicles cannot pass.”

The coconut vendors, too, are just as guilty as they themselves move their carts around and dump their shells at any open space they see. Very soon, Narine informed, the coconut vendors will have to be engaged about a special clearance for them which would involve them paying for their waste to be collected daily. The coconut shells account for about ten tonnes of garbage daily at Bourda Market alone.

Explaining why there suddenly seems to be a surge in waste being dumped on parapets, Narine explained that Solid Waste Department is no longer using its vehicles to pick up garbage.

“We can’t be a parapet waste collection department,” he asserted, adding that it is time people are named, shamed and prosecuted for this practice. He pointed out how only when there are accumulations of waste over a period of time that people rush to highlight it on social media.

“Nobody comes forward with a video or a picture of somebody dumping at these sites so we can arrest them. Nobody does that. When there’s an accumulation, then all the blame comes on City Hall shoulders and it’s unfair.”
“It’s a fight to get out of this scourge of dumping garbage all over and anywhere,” Narine added, as he recalled how the notorious 2005 floods happened not only because of overtopping but due to clogged drains as well.

Meanwhile, Narine has created a social media platform called ‘Shame on You Litter Bug.’ The Facebook Page will give the public an opportunity to post photos of persons found littering.