M&CC to implement garbage separation to foster recycling

Solid Waste Director, Walter Narine has revealed that the Mayor and City Council will be moving to separate garbage in 2020 to boost efforts at recycling waste.
In an interview with Guyana Times last week, Narine explained that they are planning to target communities individually to generate more effective results.

“We are hoping again, which was something stapled for last year, but we are hoping again this year that we can target one community. We can give each household two bins one to put the organic waste in and one to put the regular waste in. We can take that organic component of the waste, that is the food waste and we can turn that to compose where the community can benefit from the compose. They can sell it and have money for their communities,” he told this publication.
He added that for this recycling plan to be implemented, it requires a lot of effort and preparation.
“Separation of waste is a must, it is something that is burning, it is something that has to happen, but for that to see realisation very soon it takes a massive amount of education, PR, and consultation with our residents”, he emphasised.
According to the Solid Waste Director, some measures prevented them from accomplishing this task in 2019.
“A lot of things step back, remember we consulted with the residents… the idea is not only to target the residents but also to target the supermarkets and entities around the area; if you know our society, if you know some of our citizens we don’t do things unless we know what is in for them as an incentive,” he pointed out.
Meanwhile, Narine expressed appreciation to residents of Georgetown for properly disposing of their garbage in 2019, since there has been a significant decrease in the amount of garbage collected compared to previous years.

Garbage collected daily
The M&CC reported that they have been collecting an average of 180 tons of garbage per day. Narine added that one of the major challenges that face the M&CC is the indiscriminate garbage dumping around Georgetown by store owners and vendors.
He referred to the garbage pile-up at the Route 44 minibus park, where business owners and vendors continue to dump garbage even though a sign was posted there warning against the activity.
“We have a prime location at Stabroek Market, where we have a compactor that you would expect that excess garbage would be taken there but these guys would find any open spot and go and dump it there,” he pointed out.