The Trinidad and To­ba­go Scrap Iron Deal­ers As­so­ci­a­tion (TTSI­DA) has pledged sup­port for Gov­ern­ment ef­forts to tack­le the dump­ing of waste in wa­ter­cours­es, fol­low­ing re­cent com­ments by Works and In­fra­struc­ture Min­is­ter Jear­lean John.

Dur­ing a tour of drains in her Cou­va North con­stituen­cy on Tues­day, John de­scribed il­le­gal dump­ing as a “na­tion­al emer­gency,” say­ing the prac­tice had wors­ened flood­ing and called for ur­gent ac­tion ahead of the rainy sea­son. She said the Gov­ern­ment may ex­pand pub­lic ed­u­ca­tion cam­paigns to com­bat lit­ter­ing and pol­lu­tion.

Re­spond­ing to­day, TTSI­DA wel­comed the Min­is­ter’s state­ments and said it was ready to work with the au­thor­i­ties on clean-up ef­forts and en­vi­ron­men­tal out­reach.

“Over the years, our mem­bers have worked tire­less­ly to keep the en­vi­ron­ment clean by pick­ing up scrap met­al from around homes, road­ways and wa­ter­cours­es,” the group said. “We know more can be done and we be­lieve col­lab­o­ra­tion is the way for­ward.”

The as­so­ci­a­tion, led by pres­i­dent Al­lan Fer­gu­son, said it has al­ready be­gun tran­si­tion­ing to in­clude plas­tics, tyres and pa­per in its re­cy­cling ef­forts. It said it hopes to play a lead­ing role in na­tion­al en­vi­ron­men­tal pro­tec­tion by “en­sur­ing waste ma­te­ri­als can be put in their right­ful place.”

“We pledge to do what­ev­er is nec­es­sary to main­tain a clean, safe en­vi­ron­ment for all.”