People say I’m extravagant because I want to be surrounded by beauty. But tell me, who wants to be surrounded by garbage? – Imelda Marcos, widowof the former Philippine president Ferdinand Marcos.
WELL THEN, how do we explain the refuse strewn about the place almost wherever you go? Are we Barbadians as a people not given to surrounds of elegance and grace?
Not really. It is not unknown for residents of the upper end to leave their salubrious environs with trash containers and bags, only to dump them on the streets and corners of the lower level.
Let us not pretend that there isn’t the mindset that the village and the old district are the repositories of garbage – bagged or not. Or that the open highways won’t do.
Yesterday morning on the sidewalk smack in the middle of University Hill, one of the practising culprits of this subtle art of garbage engineering had surreptitiously set down with precision a jumbo bag of garbage for somebody else to pick up.
People have even been reported to have left their homes to dump their old toilet bowls on other people’s terrain.
Maybe, the idea is the rains will come and sweep them all away.
We are not without those neighbours who believe their high-priced residences ought to be kept clean if only at the expense of the much less affluent Bajan and the National Conservation Commission.
Truth be told, too many under the label of “the average Barbadian” do not manage their garbage disposal efficiently. Too often garbage cans stand outside normally ordered entrances like mauled sentries, disembowelled of their plastic intestines by marauding neighbourhood dogs.
Homeowners, eager to dispense with their leftovers and trash, top up their cans to overflowing, unsure of Sanitation Services Authority pickup times, unbothered by canine intervention.
With such a mess, what can we expect when the rains do come?
Our last flooding was contributed to by irresponsible disposal and illegal dumping. And given that Drainage Unit director Keith Barrow has admitted that our drainage system is “not built for the type of weather we had” in recent weeks, it is all the more crucial that our gutters and drains are not blocked by debris through carelessness and callousness.
One of Minister of Environment Denis Lowe’s pet peeves is that construction people are building in watercourses and “redirecting the water flow”. Well, whose responsibility is it to stop them? And more importantly, by whose authority are the builders moving into the watercourses?
Let us deal firmly with the Bajans who litter and block the gutters, drains and canals. Let’s get these construction gurus out of the watercourses.
Who really wants to be surrounded by water – or garbage?
