Forde dumps criticism of waste management project contract

Minister of Environment and National Beautification Adrian Forde has defended the award of a contract to operate a waste management project for the Sanitation Service Authority (SSA) to the subsidiary of a major construction firm.

Forde was responding to concerns that Prosource Limited, a part of the Innotech Group, has been awarded the contract to work with the SSA on a project to improve the efficiency, reliability, and regularity of waste collection, and reduce the physiological strain on sanitation workers.

Prosource’s expertise lies in residential, commercial, and industrial waste management, said Forde Wednesday during the launch of the latest community greening project in the environment ministry’s Clean and Green Programme at Paddock Rock, Garrison, St Michael.

Forde said the contract was awarded to Prosource to implement a “fully managed end-to-end solution” for the country, in response to advertisements in the media and the submission of tenders.

He told journalists: “The detaisl that I am going to bring to the public today is that like every single contract that was done in this Government after 2018, because I don’t know what happened before then, went through the normal process of tendering.

“And the Prosource company that was given the contract to put mechanical devices on the trucks as we know it, where these devices will be able to go and with an ID reader will allow the trucks mechanically to take up the garbage and put in the back of the trucks so that the occupational hazards that we face with the sanitation workers [are reduced].”

Under the project, each household in Barbados will be provided a free, standardized Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) enabled 65-gallon roll-out cart for general waste and an 18-gallon bin to be used for commingled recycling.

All the SSA’s collection compactor trucks will be retrofitted with equipment for mechanically lifting the carts.

The RFID readers installed on the trucks are expected to track collection activity and, improve collection efficiency, and the in-cab route optimization and management solution will also benefit drivers whilst reducing the SSA’s operational cost, according to David Tomilson, the director of Prosource Limited.

Forde stressed that improving the efficiency of SSA, will allow workers to have a sense of pride in their work, and raise their standards of employment.

The environment minister declared: “I am saying that I am making no apologies to anybody for putting the mechanical devices which will work with the guys at the back of the truck to lift those big heavy cans so that the workers in the twilight of their years will not be suffering from rheumatoid and all types of arthritis and all types of physiological conditions that they are faced with.

“This is to improve their lives because we came to Government on a mantra that Mia cares, we care, the Barbados Labour Party cares and that is what we have been doing to improve the livelihoods and the condition of workers since 2018.

“In Barbados, over the next couple of months, we are going to roll out the mechanical devices at the back of the trucks and each Barbadian will be given a garbage can that speaks to reusable and recyclable.”

(anestahenry@barbadostoday.bb)