Dear Editor,
From the Kingston bandstand all the way to the Kitty Roundabout, people can be seen, in large numbers on a daily basis, happily drinking all sorts of tasty beverages and eating all sorts of delicious fast foods packaged in containers of various colours, shapes and sizes. From Popeyes, KFC, Pizza Hut, and Church’s Chicken, to countless items bought right there on the seawall. These include various types of hotdogs, nuts, cotton candy, chicken and chips, ice-cream and much, much more.
The seawall is officially “lit”. And this is wonderful news for both locals and future tourists alike. The entire stretch is becoming, more and more by the week, a very popular breezy place to chill and relax with family or with friends. Plus more and more food shops are being set up every week, some selling bar-b-qued meats from Guyana and Venezuela while some sell doubles and other features of local Caribbean cuisine. Drinks companies are also now coming out to host promotional events too. They bring with them their elaborate stages, barricades, banners, logos and flood lights. They even switch on huge moving sky beam party lights that resemble bat-signals from the batman comics and movies that pierce the night sky and can be seen from miles away, making the seawall a nightclub scene of sorts. Everything is in place for a good time.
Except bins.
Where do our lovely citizens and visitors throw all the packaging that come with all these food items and beverages being consumed at that location? Where have we, as a society, given them to do so? What options have we given them but to throw it over, on and around the seawall?
Yes I agree that our citizens do indeed have a duty to keep our surroundings clean and that they are partly to blame for the present filthy appearance of our seawalls (and elsewhere) and for how we showcase our filthiness to those visitors who are staying at the Marriott and Pegasus who are expecting to be treated to a land of beauty and nature. But I have had enough of citizen-shaming. The government and the private sector have an even bigger role to play, as they do in other countries, in ensuring that our citizens have no valid excuses for littering.
Not least of the plenty valid excuses our lovely citizens presently have for littering on the seawalls, is the persistent backward deh-bad absence of basic garbage disposal options managed either by the state, the city or the private sector for the benefit of those visiting the seawalls. Basic inexpensive facilities like these are what can prevent a lot of damage. At present, all the garbage dumped on the seawall near the Kitty roundabout ends up getting washed out by the sea only to wash up back on the seashore at the Marriott Hotel and elsewhere, as if to say “Welcome to Guyana!”.
I have attached a picture of what it looks like and I hope, dear Editor, that you can be so patriotic as to print it as well. The absence of simple things like bins can ruin what would otherwise be a great experience.
It is time for the beer companies who are now setting up huge concert-like stages on the seawall to start erecting proper bins emptied on a nightly basis, complete with signage that reads perhaps “drink responsibly” etc. It is time for KFC and Pizza Hut and similar companies to start advertising their goods and services on the seawall on properly maintained durable outdoor versions of the garbage receptacles they employ and maintain at their respective branches branded with their company names on them. If the packaging in which you sell your food can be found spread out on the seawall, you have a duty and an opportunity to erect bins there. It is also time for the businesses set up on the seawall to provide adequate disposal options not just at their shop but in the general environs. It is time for the government to liaise with all these businesses and the private sector to ensure that Guyanese have proper options when attempting to dispose of their refuse on the seawall.
This duty is not a one man duty. It is our collective duty to keep Guyana clean. Everyone plays a part. And every part counts.
As it is, we are the laughing stock of the Caribbean when it comes to cleanliness, or the lack thereof. We are hated and detested. Our land is shunned as despicable, rebellious, lawless and immoral. All because we can’t seem to come together and take care of her and make her into a delight. Let’s show everyone we are more disciplined, and more united than this.
And for the record, we have way too many stray animals and vagrants on our streets to think we can throw a few inferior bins across an area, abandon them, and expect they will last. I have attached a picture of what a proper bin looks like. If possible, please print it with this, my plea of a letter. Our bins must be the kind that a citizen can look at with fascination and be eager to use. They must impress us. And be available for us where we need them.
Yours faithfully,
John M Fraser