Gareth Manning and Claudia Gardner, Sunday Gleaner Reporters
Garbage strewn by the sea in a Jamaican town.
Many of the island's major towns, including resort areas, are drowning in a growing heap of garbage, raising concerns as the Yuletide season nears.
The pile-up of garbage is being blamed on the continued poor system of collection and other inadequacies of the National Solid Waste Management Authority (NSWMA), big commercial entities like supermarkets, as well as illegal vendors, who continue to discard refuse on to the streets.
The situation has been creating a public-health nightmare for some parishes, such as Clarendon, St. Catherine, Kingston and St. Andrew, which have been plagued more than others by rats that transmit the deadly disease of leptospirosis.
With incessant rains over the last two months, the garbage has also been contributing to hazards, blocking drains and causing severe flooding in some communities.
Poor rating for tourism
But probably, more importantly, the pile-up of garbage in many of the country's prime tourist areas appears to be contributing to a poor rating of the tourism industry by overseas travel experts, who have noted in a recent survey of destinations, that the island's product is "in serious trouble."
The rating done by 522 experts on behalf of the National Geographic Society's Center for Sustainable Destinations gave Jamaica a score of 44 on its scorecard, noting among other things, that the north coast and Negril were "in a mess."
"Many beaches are spectacular ... ," the centre said in comments posted on its webpage, "... Others are covered in discarded plastic bottles. An entrepreneur could set up a mighty recycling empire here."
In St. Ann, for instance, chairman of the parish council, Mayor Delroy Giscombe, says illegal dumps are being created in some resort areas in the parish by construction workers on hotels who dump their waste near rivers and in the sea.
Some hotels to blame
Some major hotels have been guilty of discarding their solid waste in and near the White River, one of the few rivers known for rafting in Jamaica, contaminating it as well as the ocean.
"There is some compliance now, but the major hotels in and around that area usually dispose of their waste in the water," the mayor states.
"Some illegal (garbage disposal) contractors will say they are taking the debris to the Hadden Dump (one of two legal dumping sites in the parish), but they just throw it at the head of the river," he relates. "When you have that, it doesn't stay there, it goes all the way down to Runaway Bay, St. Ann's Bay and Discovery Bay and it makes the environment very unsafe."
In the ecological resort parish of Portland, a dump operated by the NSWMA is also posing tremendous danger to the marine environment.
On a trip through Portland recently, The Sunday Gleaner chanced upon the smelly garbage dump located in the midst of what appeared to be a wetland just metres from the sea. Vultures and flies were among the welcoming party as we entered the site located near the border of Portland and St. Mary. Some of the garbage was also seen strewn along the beach, apparently forced there by heavy rains.
According to Mayor of Port Antonio, Benny White, it is Portland's only dump and it serves not only Portland, but also the neighbouring parish of St. Mary, and even St. Ann.
"It doesn't make any sense (the location of the dump), but then again, we are going to be faced with a problem when that is closed. We are going to have to find some area to create our own landfill, but I don't know," White told The Sunday Gleaner.
There are plans afoot to remove the dump to Craig Mill, near Buff Bay, further west of the parish, but the mayor seems not to be aware of this plan.
Aside from the obvious threat to the environment, Mayor White notes that the presence of garbage in the parish has been responsible for rat and mosquito infestations. However, the parish seems to be getting that under control.
"A few months ago, we always had complaints about that, but that is under control," he claims.
The westernmost towns in Jamaica are not doing as well though.
Chairman of the local board of health at the Hanover Parish Council, Councillor Albert Chang, says the blame should be laid at the doorstep of the National Solid Waste Management Authority (NSWMA), which has failed to collect garbage in some coastal towns for several weeks.
"They have not collected garbage in Hopewell and Sandy Bay, and there is a huge pile-up there, and we have pictures to show," Councillor Chang reports. "It is a serious problem because you will have rat infestation again. Because of this poor collection, people in these areas throw the garbage in the gullies and drains."
"In hilly areas like Chester Castle, they burn things like plastic bottles, which is causing an environmental hazard, as people are getting influenza and other respiratory illnesses," he adds. "This is the reason we have been asking that garbage collection be extended to those areas, but the NSWMA is saying they don't have enough manpower resources and equipment. Yet, they pass through the community every day and don't stop."
Just under 2,000 rats were killed in the Hanover Health Department's last major rodent-baiting exercise held over a two-week period, in Lucea, in 2003. Notices were also served on owners of supermarkets, food establishments and derelict buildings, which were viewed as the main breeding grounds for rats at the time. According to the Statis-tical Institute of Jamaica, 83 per cent of the households in the parish have no form of garbage collection.
In Negril, the solid-waste woes are the same.
President of the Negril Chamber of Commerce, Grace Lee, says the situation is even more precarious, with the winter tourism season approaching, when an influx of tourists is expected.
Collection is haphazard
"It has been a sore point. The trucks are not coming frequent enough. The collection is haphazard because the NSWMA does not have a schedule. You only know they are coming when they blow their horns," Lee explains. "I had written a letter to both the private collectors and the NSWMA. The NSWMA said they had a challenge with trucks. I was informed that they are supposed to be getting trucks but I don't know if they did, because I do not see any changes," Lee adds.
"They have not been coming in my community in West End, so I have to be taking my garbage from home into the square where some garbage skips are located," she continues. "I think some people still burn garbage because I still pass and see remnants of that. I have not heard of people throwing garbage in the sea; I believe we are way past that. Sometimes you can't really blame the people because the garbage piles up." She said the situation would be discussed at the next meeting of the Negril Resort Board.
The Corporate Area, Clarendon and St. Catherine are under stress. Clarendon and the Corporate Area were among the parishes with the most cases of dengue and leptospirosis according to recent statements by the Ministry of Health. Speaking with The Sunday Gleaner, chief public health inspector for Clarendon, Vernal Webster, says while no link has been made between the prevalence of solid waste and recent cases of dengue and leptospirosis, the waste has been attracting pests, such as flies and rats, that carry diseases like those named.
The parish's only dump was closed some years ago, leaving residents without a site to legally dump their garbage, especially commercial enterprises and vendors who generate a significant amount of the garbage.
"The National Solid Waste has been mandated to collect domestic garbage and not much of that has been done," Webster states.
Tha is a problem Mayor of Spanish Town Dr. Andrew Wheatley attests to. He says not only are there not enough trucks, but there are inadequate numbers of inspectors employed to the NSWMA. The ineffectiveness of anti-litter laws is also a problem. He wants them to be stiffer for those who continuously flout them.
"The commercial operators still defy the law as it relates to themselves to provide for the necessary arrangements to remove their commercial garbage," says Wheatley.
"They pay persons to dispose of their garbage and they just take it out of their store and put it in front of the roadside ... The magistrates, when they are handing down penalties, should go to the top end and not the bottom end," he states.
gareth.manning@gleanerjm.com
