City Hall has written to the Ministry of Local Government requesting that the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) loan be extended to allow for proper maintenance of the Princes Street landfill, which would include fencing it and organising litter pickers.
At a statutory meeting at City Hall yesterday, Mayor Hamilton Green was upset that no representative of the council was present at a meeting of litter pickers, Acting Town Clerk Yonette Pluck and Solid Waste Director Hubert Urling.
Urling said three litter pickers, said to be representatives of the large number operating at the dump, attended the meeting. However, Green said three persons could in no way speak for the diverse number of persons who carry out operations at the dump.
Urling said the meeting was held with the pickers as a move to “set up a mode of operation-” including getting a list of their names and other contact information. He said the three representatives were expected to assist with this.
Expressing his displeasure that no member of the council was informed or involved in the meeting over a matter which is “political and public,” Green said that when the media reported on the landfill, they always referred to the “Mayor and City Council” and as such the council should be part of any issue pertaining to the dumpsite.
Councillor Fitzgerald Agard raised the issue of the litter pickers being at the dump in the first place. “Why should they be there?” he questioned, adding that they have been said to be the ones responsible for starting fires while burning the insulation off copper wire. In response Green referred to an IDB report done a while back, which had stated that litter pickers help to reduce the amount of materials dumped — such as bottles.
The mayor said that very lucrative business is done from the dumpsite. Thousands of bottles are exported to Trinidad, he said, not to mention the tonnes of materials that are recycled, which would help to create more space. He added that some people’s livelihoods were directly tied to the dumpsite.
It was noted that there was a downside too. Litter pickers would often remove materials, including food items, from the landfill and sell them, which posed health risks to the unsuspecting persons who would purchase them.
However, he emphasized that in order to keep things under control and prevent these happenings proper management had to be put in place. There was the question of the competence and the availability of resources –human and otherwise — to effectively manage the landfill and the litter pickers so that neither became a nuisance.
Meanwhile, Urling said that pickers were not allowed on the dump until further notice.
However, there have been reports that the pickers are going about their business after hours when constabulary ranks are not patrolling the area.
