#BTEditorial – No time to waste, Clean up your act

It’s ludicrous that a mere six days into 2023, we are again faced with the scourge of illegal dumping.

It’s a deplorable, unhealthy practice that every right-thinking Barbadian should have dumped last year.

Today, St Thomas MP Cynthia Forde took reporters on a tour of several sites transformed into dumping grounds in the central parish.

At Content, Bucks, Stone Gully and Jack-in-the-Box Gully, there are mounds of debris – animal carcasses, coconut shells, construction material, discarded clothing, boxes, fridges, stoves, washing machines, household appliances, and more.

A visibly upset Forde did not mince words as she questioned why people would repeatedly resort to using the secluded areas in the parish to indiscriminately dispose of their waste, particularly after it had been repeatedly cleaned.

“What is happening to our well-educated people? I am saddened at this start of a new year, that we have to undergo this kind of pressure and sadness over people who only think about themselves and no one else.

“This is heartbreaking, having for the last six weeks been going all through these avenues and all through these roads to be able to pick up information and to share it with the honourable minister [Minister of Environment and National Beautification Adrian Forde] who, too, is extremely concerned. How dare Mr Minister come, bring his team, work so hard and then people come back the next evening and they repeat the same wickedness?”

Forde demanded that strong action be taken: “I believe it is time that somebody now should be charged in the court of law for making this kind of nuisance and this kind of dislocation in this parish. These people should be charged and I want cameras put up in these areas to make sure that the perpetrators are caught and that they have to pay a heavy fine in a court of law.”

When contacted, the Environment Minister declared that the time for talking about illegal dumping must come to an end.

He said: “When these perpetrators are caught, I am insisting that the legislative arm of government bring these people before the law courts. We are talking about locking up some people. I am appealing to Barbadians who have video footage of these incidents to come forward…. We want that evidence.”

We couldn’t agree more with Minister Forde. But we want more than talk. That, in fact, is the crux of the problem.

Repeatedly, dumping grounds are discovered all across this beautiful island. Environmentalists and other groups clean up gullies and beaches of litter and waste, time and time again, and no one is called to account even with laws in place to deal with offenders.

Thus, the message is repeatedly sent that it’s not a big deal to abuse the environment despite the risk to our health.

No more lip service on the issue. First, deal with litterbugs – those who carelessly discard their trash in public places in plain view of others, dropping their plastic bottles, tissue, food containers, and plastic bags along the road. They should not escape a suitable penalty.

And those who hide and dump a heap of waste in secluded places, they should be made to pay the maximum fine or spend some time in reflection at Dodds, or both, but not before cleaning up their mess.

Neither talk, no matter how tough, nor promises will save our beautiful, fragile environment once we allow this blatant disregard for cleanliness to continue.

It reflects poorly on all of us and the quicker we can get a handle on the problem, the better.