In an effort to deliver efficient garbage collection in the city, the Georgetown City Council is redeploying street orderlies to assist with the garbage collection in the commercial district.
Solid Waste Director Walter Narine said that the system was put in place to allow efficient garbage collection.
Narine explained that with the system in place, they are able to clean the commercial area and get to the Haags Bosch landfill before it closes at 8 pm. The street orderlies have been working in an area bounded by North Road and Charlotte Street.
Narine told Stabroek News that the garbage collected from businesses would be dumped into large receptacles and compactors, strategically placed at the City Hall compound on Regent Street and at Orange Walk, Bourda.
It was further explained that the system was also put in placed due to the amount of waste generated by the commercial area. He stated that a collection is being done during the mornings, whereby the contracted trucks drive through the streets and collect the garbage.
The changes in the garbage collection in the City have come about as a result of the previously contracted firms suspending their operations.
Cevons Waste Management Inc. and Puran Brothers Disposal Inc. were forced to suspend their operations to protest the council’s continued failure to honour its financial obligations to them. The companies are owed over $300 million in total, for services provided, dating back to 2015.
The council has since contracted three smaller waste disposal companies to assist with garbage collection, because it has been unable to pay the debt.
Meanwhile, Narine is calling on residents and members of the business community to respect the work being done in the city by the garbage collectors.
He said that a number of persons have been dumping garbage outside of the bins, thus forcing the workers to do unnecessary cleaning up. He noted that in some cases they found that the bins provided were empty and it was not a case of garbage overflowing.
He is calling on persons to desist from such actions. Effective September 1, businesses are required to pay for the collection of garbage, as the council announced that it can no longer subsidise the $50 million per month garbage disposal bill.
Businesses will fall under three categories; small, medium and large, and will be billed $5,000, $8,000 and $12,000, per month, respectively.
