National cleanup has to be a sustainable approach; national plan needed not “random acts”

Nov 16, 2022 Letters

Dear Editor,

The Government-led clean-up campaigns are quite admirable. It’s good to see the President, the Georgetown Mayor, and Government officials being able to mobilise folks to go out and do cleaning of drains, weeding, removal of abandoned vehicles, etc. However, these ‘random acts’ of clean-up campaigns from time to time is a problem we need to fix. Random cleanups are not the solution. When will the next random clean-up be held? How can we sustain these clean-up efforts on a routine basis, using a systems approach, so that special cleaning campaigns are no longer necessary? After 60 years of both the PNC and PPP, we have not developed proper systems to deal with sanitation, solid waste disposal, and keeping our environment clean. There are no national, regional or local NDC plans. We are ‘winging it’ as we go. Our communities remain “stink and dutty.” Drains are not dug, parapets in front of people’s front drains are not cleaned. Instead of taking time to do self-help and clean in front of their yards, some people are waiting on the Government or NDC to do it for them. That disease is called “let-the-government-do-it-titis.” Any new Third Force party must make clean communities a key plank of its Manifesto, as the job is not being done in a sustainable manner, as we rotate between the PNC and PPP.

Simply asking people to practice proper disposal of trash alone will not help. Government must create several landfills in every region or procure trash incinerators, operate covered trash holding areas in villages, and provide more bins. These are root cause solutions. What is a resident supposed to do with construction trash, yard waste, household trash, or recyclables? The problem is trash pick-up at the village level is non-existent, unreliable, or random. The NDCs are failures. Villagers have nowhere to dispose of trash and they do it aback the village or in the burial grounds. Tax Exxon and friends and use that income to invest in a few hundred specialized trash trucks equipped with lift systems to do weekly pick up of trash across the country, not just Region 4. Provide or require each household to have a trash bin and a recycle bin. This means creating a recycling programme too. Provide or subsidise lawn mowers (push mowers) that people can use to mow their grass once a week. If you are doing clean up campaigns once a quarter or half yearly, the grass will be too high to be mowed and you would then have to use string/metal blade slashers. Guyanese households have not gotten into a ‘landscaping’ mindset as yet. Instead of mowing the grass regularly, people either weed out the grass or use gramoxone or grass killers to kill the grass and expose the dirt/earth. This is bad. Many schools do not have lawns. People track sand and dirt into the buildings. Swami’s School (Saraswati Vidya Niketan at Cornelia Ida) is a good model of lawns.

Sadly, nastiness starts in schools. From a young age, children get bad socialization. They attend decrepit schools with poorly kept sanitation blocks, and where the buildings, floors and desks are dinghy. Local health clinic yards are kept poorly. The toilets are usually the most unsanitary places in Government buildings and public places. Restaurants and gas station toilets too. Even the airport is messy sometimes. Nation let’s cultivate a mindset for a clean, healthy environment, befitting an emerging oil country. Ditch the Third World mentality! Keep Guyana clean!

Sincerely,

Dr. Jerry Jailall

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