By Orville Williams
Residents across the country are being warned that they stand to join the long list of persons who have been prosecuted for illegal dumping if they refuse to quit the practice.
The warning, from General Manager of the National Solid Waste Management Authority (NSWMA) Daryl Spencer, comes amid a massive bulk waste clean-up exercise that is set to end early in September.
The scourge of illegal dumping is one of the major catalysts for the islandwide clean-up, through which residents can get rid of waste such as household appliances, furniture, construction materials and even derelict vehicles.
Residents are normally responsible for having these materials transported to the landfill and properly disposed of, but that burden has been lifted over the past couple of weeks as personnel from the NSWMA have been visiting communities to collect the waste, free of cost.
This effort, Spencer hopes, will help to change attitudes toward illegal dumping, but there will also be sustained focus on educating people and enforcing the laws meant to prevent the practice.
“It’s going to be a slow road to take it to where we want it to be, but we will get there. What has to happen is continuous education, and in this case, I realise it has to be continuous enforcement too, [meaning] fining people who are caught doing so.
“We’ve been prosecuting quite a few people. We’ve caught people, they’ve paid, [and] we’ve had people who were ordered by the court to work for National Solid Waste for a period of six months. So, the justice system works,” he stated.
Over the past couple of years, many residents who witnessed illegal dumping have reported seeing the perpetrators doing so late at night, in an apparent attempt to avoid being recognised and subsequently held accountable.
Spencer warns, though, that the NSWMA personnel leave no stone unturned when assessing these dump sites, and often find evidence of where the waste originated.
“When we pick up an illegal dump site, we go search it, we dive through the garbage and we look for clues as to whose waste it may be. It never comes up that it belongs to the trucker; it always comes up belonging to the person who paid the trucker.
“And for those people who import a lot of barrels, we have everything – we have your telephone number, your name, who sent it to you, too,” he warned.
As for the reasons behind the illegal dumping, the GM said, “What I find is that some people find the cost prohibitive”.
He added, though, that “it’s virtually free to dump at the landfill; you don’t pay for green waste [yard trimmings, etc] at all … construction waste is only $5 per ton”.
And for those persons who operate within the confines of the law and hire trucks to transport their waste to the landfill, he shared some advice on how to ensure that it’s properly done.
“We ask that you do not pay the truck at all until they bring you back what is called a ‘load ticket’ from the landfill. This load ticket is your proof that [your] waste was disposed of appropriately,” he explained.
Spencer noted, too, that the NSWMA has not yet calculated the amount of waste they have collected so far in the clean-up campaign.
He also shared his predictions for how much they will eventually collect, as well as his hopes for the actual outcome.
“I think we would have collected more, in that we’ve expanded the range this time where we’re collecting derelict vehicles. We did not do so in 2020 … and we’ve also targeted more illegal dump sites this time around than we did in 2020.
“I’m hoping that we collect less [and that] the general population has started to rethink the way they manage waste, started to recycle a little bit more, has been using the services offered by the NSWMA and not dumping illegally,” he noted.
The bulk waste clean-up campaign was set to wrap up work in St Mary’s North and St Mary’s South yesterday, before commencing work in All Saints East and St Luke and All Saints West on August 27.