Addressing Guyana’s environmental problem

Sep 20, 2018 Letters

Dear Editor,
My Guyanese husband and I live in Florida and have visited Guyana for several weeks every year since 1998. Our American born children both lived in Guyana within the last decade; one to attend GIA school and the other to work.
We have brought friends and family with us from the states several times to visit Georgetown as well as to tour the interior. I am well aware of Guyana’s economic challenges.
The trash problem here has astonished me since my first step out of the airport and into Timehri 20 years ago. After my first visit, while still on the plane back to the US, I wrote a letter to the Minister of Tourism pointing out that the eco-tourists that Guyana was trying to attract would not be able to see the rivers, rainforest, or wildlife past the disgusting and environmentally hazardous piles of garbage blanketing the ground! Of course, I received no reply.
In the years since, I have tried to do my small part as a visitor by lecturing to my husband’s extended family on the evils of throwing trash on the ground or in the trenches, and picking up and bagging others’ trash myself and (mostly vainly) hunting for a receptacle in which to deposit it.
I continue to be amazed at a culture of human beings that considers it acceptable to foul their own surroundings including the waterways – and a government that allows it to happen.
I am aware of the recent clean-up efforts of the current administration and duly note the ban of commercial Styrofoam food containers. Also, I’m pleased to see placement of a few public refuse containers now scattered around Georgetown (even though at least half are typically overflowing with garbage and need to be emptied much more frequently).
I have read about the requirement for businesses and residents to subscribe to and pay for regular garbage collection but can find no data suggesting compliance or enforcement (by the way, the checklist for acquiring and renewing a business licence should include a contract with a garbage collection company.).
Still as I walk along the seawall every day, I view the piles of accumulated trash along the shore, less the returnable beer bottles collected by scavengers. The government has managed the politically difficult achievements of banning smoking in public areas and banning Styrofoam, why can’t it also ban plastic bags and require deposits on all glass and plastic bottles?
Politically challenging as well but those efforts would go a long way in limiting garbage on the streets, in parks and beaches, and in the rivers and ocean.
Final note: This letter has also been sent to M&CC – although with the Town Clerk now suspended amid complaints of corruption at City Hall, it’s hard to imagine anyone focusing on tangible issues that actually could improve the day-to-day lives of average residents and visitors.
Carolyn Walker
Jacksonville FL

Discover more from Kaieteur News

Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.

Latest News