TWENTY-TWO?loads of garbage were removed from parts of Bridgetown over the past 48 hours and the majority was as a result of illegal dumping.
Corporate communications officer at the Sanitation Service Authority (SSA), Carl “Alff”?Padmore, told the DAILY?NATION?yesterday that 11 loads or 65 tonnes of garbage were removed by the SSA from streets in The City between the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Nelson Street and Queen’s Park on Monday and another 11 loads removed from other areas yesterday. These were outside normal SSA collection times.
He pointed out that some of the problematic dumping grounds were Gills Road and the old Fairchild Street Market at River Road.
“We are concerned about the lack of respect being shown to what the SSA is trying to do . There are a number of areas in and around The City which we have cleaned in the past 48 hours only to return to find that they are full of garbage again,” he stated, making specific reference to Gills Road, which was cleaned on Monday but by yesterday was overflowing with garbage again.
“This is very sad and it speaks to persons showing little or no regard for what we are trying to do,” Padmore said, adding that residents living in The City areas were afraid to say who the illegal dumpers were.
But he said such peoplem were abusing the use of skips which the SSA had placed in certain strategic areas in The City. When those skips became full, he said, the garbage was then dumped on the ground around it.
For instance, he said, loads of discarded construction material were dumped in a skip at the old Fairchild Street Market.
“When our truck driver came to remove the skip he found that it could not be lifted because the weight was too much. On closer inspection it was realised that the skip contained construction material.”
Apart from that situation, Padmore added that the SSA was also having difficulty accessing the skip at Fairchild Street because drivers were blocking the access to the gate with their vehicles.
Yesterday evening the SSA removed tonnes of garbage from the area, which had accumulated for several weeks. Some of it had even started to seep into the nearby Careenage.
He said there was also a problem with the SSA trucks accessing Nelson Street because vehicles were parked on both sides of the road while a boat owner had left a boat at King William Henry Street for several months now, making access to that street impossible.
Padmore pointed out that the SSA would have to meet with the police to ensure that the authority’s vehicles had free access to these areas.
