SOME OF THE FLOODING the island has experienced over the past few days is being blamed on illegal dumping and littering.
Administrative director of the Future Centre Trust, Nicole Garofano, said the effects of the bad habits of Barbadians had been painfully evident.
“Flooding like this is a classic example of how waste can impact our environment,” Garofano told the DAILY NATION as the island was put under a flood watch from persistent showers on Monday afternoon.
Across the length and breadth of the island, residents complained that flood waters trapped people in homes, devastated property and made roads impassable.
It was those kinds of scenes, said Garofano, that showed the link between littering, dumping and flooding.
“We must realise the impact that haphazard disposal of waste has on the environment,” she stressed.
“From gullies to agricultural fields to drains, much of the littering will end up flowing out to sea or, in the very least, making flooding in built up areas worst by blocked drains,” she said.
“And these events will no doubt become common-place as climate change predictions impacts, which include large scale flooding, increase,” Garofano told the DAILY NATION.
Maintaining that Barbadians must learn to respect the environment and keep it clean, Garofano said Barbadians would only realise the correlation between illegal dumping, littering and flooding when “they see footage of Government workers having to clean out drains”.
It also now means, said Garofano, that Government would be forced to use taxpayers money to clean up something that, for the most part, could have been prevented.
“If you look at the seas around Barbados today [yesterday], there is so much soil going out to sea and I’m sure if we let that settle that we will find a lot of waste on our beaches over the next few days,” she said.
Garofano added that while the message of not dumping and littering was slowly getting through, there were still some segments who were not heeding the call. (HLE)
