Illegal dumping is a major threat to Barbados’ drinking water, Minister of Environment and National Beautification, Green and Blue Economy Adrian Forde warned yesterday.
He voiced concern about the issue yesterday while reporting that since the ministry’s Gullies Are Life Project started last November “we have so far collected tonnes and tonnes of garbage”, including old refrigerators
and washing machines.
Forde was speaking during debate on the Storm Water Management Bill, 2025 in the House of Assembly yesterday.
The new legislation includes a $20 000 fine related to illegal dumping, which the minister said was a move in the right direction and complemented the $5 000 fine for similar practices under the Health Services Act.
He voiced concern about “the improper waste disposal and waste practices that will lead . . . obviously [to] the garbage debris, bulk waste pile-up and the effects that we see as it relates to the change of the natural course of our water”.
“Illegal dumping, a scourge that has not only destroyed our ecosystem as we know it, but now . . . it has an effect on the course of our water . . . the quality as well,” Forde said.
“Because with illegal dumping, there is a sister that associates itself very closely with it, and that is pollution. And . . . the effect of those remnants, as they relate to leaching into our water supply is the devil that we have to deal with on a daily basis in my ministry.”
The Member of Parliament for Christ Church West Central said: “The legislation would say to persons who continue to dump illegally in our gullies and in our ecosystem and disrupting the natural flow of our water and also bring harmful chemicals into that same water that you can now be charged $20 000 because on summary conviction, that is what this legislation has put in place.
“That is a move in the right direction, along with the Health Services Act, which speaks to the $5 000 if you are found dumping illegally or the year imprisonment, or on summary conviction up to two years imprisonment, . . . this is a step in the right direction,” he said.
“We as a people, as a nation who is suffering from water scarcity and water shortage, should embrace this type of legislation, and equally, we should be responsible enough and be conscious enough not to be involved in the illegal and wanton behaviour that we are seeing.”
On the Gullies Are Life Project, he said: “We started the project in earnest last November, and we have so far collected tonnes and tonnes of garbage . . . the old fridges, the old washing machines.
“When they start to disintegrate, all the harmful chemicals go into our water supply, and if they don’t go into the water supply immediately . . . they are washed, along with other harmful remnants, into the sea.”
