– NDIA launches campaign against littering

ECHOING calls for Guyanese to take better care of their surroundings, Minister of Agriculture, Zulfikar Mustapha, noted that all stakeholders must collaborate to change the culture of littering in Guyana.

The Minister made these remarks during the launch of the National Drainage and Irrigation Authority’s (NDIA’s) ‘No Littering Campaign’ on Tuesday at the Georgetown seawalls.
“We have to clean but at the same time we have to work with the population. We have to work with the people and we have to change their culture and change their mindset,” he said, adding: “Our culture in Guyana, sometimes when persons eat something from a bottle or eat something from a plastic they throw the garbage out of their car window or on the road. We now have to work against that culture.”

The Minister noted that there can be an end to littering but only if the relevant agencies, volunteer groups and the populace work together.
“Let us be an agency that can make this change in our country. We in Guyana here have a culture and the Government can put all the resources in place but if we don’t change the culture and the behaviour of our population then we will end up at square one again,” Minister Mustapha said.

He urged the NDIA to take its littering campaign to other parts of the country to further address the culture of littering.
Adding to the Minister’s call, Mr. Dwayne Hackett, founder of the ‘Seawall and Beyond’ volunteer group said that littering is more than just an aesthetic problem but rather a serious one, especially during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

“In this time of pandemic, we are all too aware of the importance of proper sanitation and sanitary practices. Finally, and critically important is the fact that waste generated from human activity has a major impact on ecosystems not only the ecosystems on land but those of the ocean,” he said.

He noted that humans depend on the ocean and it is critical that they protect it at all cost.
“As humans, we depend on the oceans far more than we often think about it. The health of oceans is critically important to our very existence. Not only do the seas provide the world’s population with seafood but it is the largest influencer of our climate. We need to better care for our ocean by not dumping trash into it.”

Hackett said that, daily, large volumes of waste enter the ocean by direct littering and dumping of garbage over the seawalls and by the seaside, along with dumping into rivers, creeks, canals, trenches and drains, which eventually finds its way into the oceans.