I read and hear about it over and over but I have never experienced it until now. I am talking about people who leave where they live, drive a safe distance away and then dump their garbage on somebody else’s space.
Sometimes it’s actually the doing of somebody who has been paid to take the load to the dump but that person drives around the corner or, depending on which part of the island they are, to the nearest cart road, gully or “turn back gap”, throws it off and then laughs their way to the bank without any concern for the environment or the people who live in the immediate vicinity.
In my case, I do not know which type might be the culprit but one morning two weeks ago I drove out from home to be met by a load of garbage that had been dumped overnight outside my wall.
The smaller stuff was packed inside and overflowing from a barrel, the kind that’s shipped from overseas at Christmas time. The bigger stuff, including the remnants of a large chair cushion, rested on the ground outside the barrel.
I had hoped that when the garbage truck came through, the guys would have picked up this discarded garbage but it looks like they don’t deal with barrels or old cushions because the stuff was still outside my house a week later, albeit I had it moved to the other side of the road where there is no house.
Of particular concern is the fact that there has been a lot of rain recently and sooner or later adult mosquitoes will be flying out of that barrel to threaten my family and neighbours with dengue fever.
Ironically, the laughable part about this incident of illegal dumping is that still written across the barrel is the name and address of the person to whom it was shipped and who, directly or indirectly, was responsible for reposing it outside my house.
Unfortunately, I have searched the telephone directory but have not been able to find a listing for the name or for any person with the surname living at the address on the barrel.
So I resorted to Facebook, did a search and lo and behold, did find a person with the name. Address-wise he only has himself as living in Bridgetown, Barbados. I, therefore, posted a message telling him that if he lives at the address on the barrel to give me an urgent call. However, up to the time of writing, nobody has called.
Now I am weighing my option of using the power of my pen and including in the column a photograph of the garbage showing the barrel with the person’s name and address. But I have decided to hold back on that option because the address is a neighbouring district and I would not want a neighbour to be the talk of the town even if he, directly or indirectly, is responsible for dumping his garbage outside my house.
Here, therefore, is my alternative. If you live in a district in the vicinity of Queen’s College, and if your name and address is written on a barrel, and if you dumped or had that barrel dumped in front of a house in another district in the vicinity of Queen’s College, please come or send and take it away to the real dump as soon as possible.
By the way. You have until next Sunday to do so or have it done.
• Al Gilkes heads a public relations firm.
