Truck?drivers supposedly heading to the Mangrove Landfill in St Thomas have been leaving their garbage behind along nearby Bucks Road – a road located just mere metres away from the dump.
And long-time resident of the area attorney at law Robert “Bobby” Clarke believes something needs to be done as a matter of urgency about this indiscriminate behaviour.
So out of control has the dumping been that an upset Clarke was forced to plead to the Sanitation Service Authority (SSA) to remove a huge load of the garbage after it became hazardous to passing motorists.
“It was all out in the road,” said Clarke, referring to the discarded load of coconut shells, mattresses, pieces of wood and other debris that were dumped along a section of the secluded road.
Taking a NATION?team to the area, Clarke pointed out sections along the road which were littered with garbage of all sorts.
“This has been going on for years,” said Clarke, who expressed disbelief that people would dump along the road when the Mangrove Landfill was a short distance away.
It took the SSA almost two days to remove the biggest load of garbage from the area.
And superintendent of the Mangrove landfill, Carl Boxill, said having to constantly clean the road was impacting on the landfill’s resources.
“I have to pull teams and equipment from other jobs and pay them overtime to clean out there and then you hear people saying it’s our job. This is not right,” he stated.
Boxill, who has spoken in the past about this practice of illegal dumping said the only solution to the problem was to police the road.
“We may need to put surveillance cameras along that road so that we can catch the culprits,” he suggested.
He pointed out that the landfill was open 24 hours every day, adding that it was “doing extremely well” with the handling of garbage, but he reiterated that the continued dumping along the streets was proving problematic.
