St James councillors want more enforcement to curb illicit garbage dumping
by Christopher Thomas/Gleaner Writer · The GleanerWESTERN BUREAU:
Councillors in the St James Municipal Corporation (StJMC) are calling for greater enforcement from the National Solid Waste Management Authority (NSWMA) in punishing individuals who illegally dump in their divisions, particularly in relation to bulky waste items which they say are dumped shortly after the dumpsites have been cleaned.
Michael Troupe, councillor for the Granville division, and Joshua Cummings, councillor for the Montego Bay Central division, made the appeal while addressing last Thursday’s monthly meeting of the StJMC, where they complained that enforcement of waste management is lacking in their respective areas.
Troupe suggested that the NSWMA should empower the StJMC’s councillors as municipal wardens so they can serve tickets on persons who are caught unlawfully dumping bulky items such as old mattresses and refrigerators, including along the roadway in his division.
“There is an area in my division, along Glover Allen Drive, where just as they cleaned up the area, somebody went there and threw an old mattress and an old fridge there. Some of those areas that you call illegal dumpsites, you have to take special measures to catch those culprits … as soon as somebody cleans the area, somebody else throws a big mattress there,” said Troupe.
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“I would love for all councillors to be municipal wardens so we can catch those culprits, so give us a ticket book and we can prosecute them also, because I do not think you have enough persons within your organisation for that,” Troupe continued. “If every councillor has that authority to prosecute those persons, it will go a far way. People just throw anything, they just throw it out, anywhere, anyhow, so I understand your efforts and that you are trying, but it just goes to naught because you clean the space there, somebody throws a mattress there later.”
Norwood dump site
In the meantime, Cummings argued that waste management enforcement is likewise sorely needed to address an illegal dump site along the main road in the Norwood community within his division.
“I have been pleading in regard to the enforcement officers of the NSWMA, to give Norwood some serious attention where enforcement is concerned. We have an illegal dump site in Norwood, on the front of the main road, and believe you me, if you clean today, by tomorrow it is almost in an unsightly situation. I am saying to the NSWMA this morning, if they have an enforcement team, I am going to ask them to allow the enforcement team to do their work,” said Cummings.
In response to both councillors, Mark Jones, the public cleansing manager for the NSWMA’s Western Parks and Markets (WPM), said care must be taken in vetting persons to be enforcement wardens, even as he promised that his organisation would do more to address illicit dumping in the affected areas.
“We are going to try our best to ramp up more enforcement, because as it relates to having more persons gazetted to serve tickets and do other enforcement matters, that would probably have to be a recommendation from a higher level. When you gazette persons, they may have personal vendettas against a person and give tickets because of whatever issues they may have had in the past or ongoing,” said Jones. “We have to be careful about who we gazette, or allow to be a gazetted officer to serve tickets, but that will be mentioned to our managers and possibly even upward to our directors.”
The discussion followed the tabling of the NSWMA’s monthly waste collection report for St James, which outlined that 14 districts in the parish were in backlog during October compared to 20 districts in September. Additionally, 11 government units and one supplemental unit were used in garbage collection during October, although operations were affected by rainy weather.