The genesis of the garbage problem

Jan 11, 2013 Letters

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Dear Editor,
To understand and resolve the current Garbage situation in Georgetown we have to go back two years ago when the garbage was collected by private contractors. For garbage collection purpose the Mayor and City Council divided Georgetown into ten sections. All section were contracted out to Private Waste Collection Contractors – Cevons Waste Management and Puran Brothers.
In some sections garbage was collected daily (such as the Commercial zone), some twice per week such as Queenstown, Alberttown, North and South Cummingsburg, Kingston and Thomas Lands, and the other sections garbage was collected once per week.
The system was working near perfect since even if there was a problem with the contractor equipment the garbage would have been collected next day. In the event the contractor did not perform, his payment would have been cut.
Then two things happened together – (a) the disposal point moved to the Landfill Site at Haags Bosch at the back of Eccles, East Bank Demerara and (b) Mayor and City Council without much thought and analysis took back two of the most challenging sections (one each) from private contractors – Cevons Waste Management and Puran Brothers which included areas such as Queenstown, Alberttown, Kingston, North and South Cummingsburg, and Eve Leary
The contractor working the Commercial Zone used to collect waste after the close of business (say starting about 5pm daily) found that he could no longer do so since the Landfill closes at 5pm. The contractor thereafter started to collect the waste much earlier so that he could catch the landfill before closure. The situation here is that waste thrown out by businesses after the early collection by the contractor now ended up on the street.
Things that went wrong regarding the Mayor and City Council: The city council has over the years been suffering from financial difficulties in paying the garbage Contractors. The period of City Council owing the Contractors became longer and thus amounts owing contractors were greater.
The amount of monies owing to contractors (many times as presented in the media – with little or no consideration for the length of time the monies were outstanding) seem alarming to a number of persons within the council most of whom were not fully appreciative of the dynamics of running large fleet of vehicles and moreso highly sophisticated vehicles such as garbage trucks with numerous pneumatic and electronic controls.
A number of non- technical Senior Officers of the Council pressed for acquisition and running of its own fleet of vehicles. There were a number of lessons the council could have learn but did not pay heed – the big buses, Ministry of Public Works acquired two garbage trucks and could not maintain them fully functional on the road, Ministry of Agriculture recently acquired a fleet of excavators but contracted out the operation and maintenance of them, most government agencies tend to contract out their maintenance.
So the M&CC ran into maintenance problems.
Residential garbage was collected twice per week. The first sign of failure came when the Council due to maintenance problems with its garbage trucks changed to once per week waste collection. There was not much thought in this movement since business activities had increased in these areas but the council was going in the opposite direction of reducing the waste collection frequency – the result was an increase of waste on the street.
4. As council grappled with its maintenance problems the other areas taken back from the contractors were also affected and piles of garbage started to appear on Mandela Avenue  and in places such as West Ruimveldt, La Penitence, East Ruimveldt, Costello Housing Scheme, etc).
The  solution rests in the following measures:
I. The Landfill could open a special section to accept the night waste to cater for the Commercial Zone Waste.
The Mayor and City Council should immediately hand back to the Contractors these two sections (moreso the section that includes Queenstown, Alberttown, Kingston, North and South Cummingsburg).
The council should use its fleet of vehicles to concentrate on street cleaning and as standby in the event of strike or industrial actions by contractors to maintain critical areas.
Mayor and City Council can use its vehicles for minimal tasks and help in enhancing the streets and city in general and at the same time give its technical staff time to build up they technical competence which would better serve them over the next five years if they should then decide to be more adventurous and decide to take a section or two.
By stepping back to the position council was a couple years ago with private contractors, working in the two largest sections of the city, our garbage situation in Georgetown would be resolved within four weeks.
Basil Britton

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