Rad­hi­ca De Sil­va

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Res­i­dents of Union Hall are call­ing on the Gov­ern­ment and the Pe­nal/Debe Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion to ur­gent­ly ad­dress garbage build-up in their com­mu­ni­ty, say­ing the sit­u­a­tion has wors­ened as Christ­mas ap­proach­es.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia, res­i­dent Gra­cie Boney, who lives on Sopho­ra Av­enue, said while garbage col­lec­tion takes place in some parts of the area, in­con­sis­tent pick-ups and il­le­gal dump­ing have left sec­tions of Union Hall in an un­san­i­tary state.

Boney said garbage on near­by roads has be­come a ma­jor con­cern, par­tic­u­lar­ly when the wind blows.

“The garbage down on the oth­er side is very, very ter­ri­ble. When the breeze blows, every­body gets af­fect­ed,” she said.

She said Sopho­ra Av­enue has garbage col­lec­tion at least once a week, but res­i­dents are of­ten told col­lec­tions should oc­cur on Mon­days, Wednes­days and Fri­days, even though trucks are rarely seen mid­week.

“To­day is garbage day, and that’s a build-up from Fri­day to now,” Boney said, adding that the ir­reg­u­lar sched­ule has con­tributed to piles of waste ac­cu­mu­lat­ing in front of homes.

Boney said the clo­sure of the for­mer Com­mu­ni­ty-Based En­vi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion and En­hance­ment Pro­gramme (CEPEP) has al­so af­fect­ed the clean­li­ness of the area.

She ex­pressed hope that the Na­tion­al Pro­gramme for the Up­keep of Pub­lic Spaces (NPUPS), which now falls un­der the re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tions, would help re­store rou­tine main­te­nance.

“I would like to see the drains cleaned and the grass cut. It hasn’t been cut since elec­tion time,” she said. “We had a very good CEPEP be­fore, and the area has suf­fered tremen­dous­ly since then.”

Mean­while, an­oth­er res­i­dent, Daniel­la Wal­lace, said the garbage pile­up pos­es a health haz­ard for all the res­i­dents, in­clud­ing chil­dren.

When con­tact­ed about the garbage is­sue, the chair­man of the Pe­nal/Debe Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion, Gow­tam Ma­haraj, ac­knowl­edged long-stand­ing con­cerns of res­i­dents.

He said steps are be­ing tak­en to ad­dress the is­sue through the NPUPS pro­gramme.

Ma­haraj said teams have al­ready be­gun work at sev­er­al lo­ca­tions, in­clud­ing the Fran­cis Seep­aul Recre­ation Ground in Debe and will ex­pand to oth­er pub­lic spaces and com­mu­ni­ty cen­tres where the need ex­ists.

He said the pro­gramme al­lows the cor­po­ra­tion flex­i­bil­i­ty to de­ploy work­ers where they are most need­ed, with sim­pli­fied ad­min­is­tra­tive pro­ce­dures to en­sure eas­i­er man­age­ment and over­sight.

Ad­dress­ing con­cerns about garbage in Union Hall specif­i­cal­ly, Ma­haraj said the cor­po­ra­tion is work­ing with the Sol­id Waste Man­age­ment Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed (SWM­COL) and oth­er stake­hold­ers to clar­i­fy re­spon­si­bil­i­ties and en­sure res­i­dents are not ex­posed to health risks.

“In the mean­time, we have en­sured that res­i­dents’ garbage pile-up is tak­en care of so that there is no health haz­ard loom­ing,” he said.

Ma­haraj al­so ad­dressed the is­sue of in­dis­crim­i­nate dump­ing, which he de­scribed as a per­sis­tent prob­lem.

He said the cor­po­ra­tion has ap­proved the pur­chase of re­mote cam­eras to mon­i­tor il­le­gal dump­ing, in­clud­ing the dis­pos­al of do­mes­tic, se­mi-com­mer­cial waste and co­conut shells.

He said al­le­ga­tions of con­tract­ed garbage trucks dump­ing waste in pris­tine ar­eas have been re­duced to “ze­ro,” cit­ing in­creased po­lice pa­trols and mon­i­tor­ing by cor­po­ra­tion war­dens.

Ma­haraj added that plans are al­so un­der­way to strength­en en­force­ment through ex­pand­ed health sur­veil­lance in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the rel­e­vant min­istry.

Res­i­dents, how­ev­er, said they are hop­ing to see vis­i­ble im­prove­ments in their com­mu­ni­ties as the hol­i­day sea­son ap­proach­es.