‘Overwhelming support’ for home waste collection project

As the Sanitation Service Authority continues to roll out its Residential Waste Collection Improvement Project, officials from the public-private sector partnership behind the venture have declared an overwhelmingly favourable response from the public five weeks on.

So far, over 16,000 roll-out carts have been given to households so far, SSA spokesman Carl Padmore said on Thursday.

He said the process has been going exceptionally well, with many residents calling in to thank the SSA for the new service.

Padmore said: “From the SSA, I can tell you that we are pleased with the response from the public; they have been calling, even giving suggestions, even the elderly [are] pleased with the fact that they call roll [the carts] out and not have to lift up a big can.

“To date based on the information, we have 16,485 roll-out carts and bins provided, and the programme has been going just over five weeks, 74 cart lifters installed and we have three trucks remaining to be installed,”

The authority is banking on the initiative encouraging more recycling and separation of waste at the source, in a bit to prolong the life of the island’s sole landfill, Mangrove Pond.

“When we look at Barbados, a life of a landfill is about 15 years,” said Padmore. “The Government spends in excess of $15 million to outfit a landfill… that is really a lot. If we separate at source we can extend the life of the landfill.

“We want Barbadians to get into the habit of separating at source, that is why these bins came out.”

The project is in collaboration with the privately-owned Prosource Ltd, whose communications officer, Janelle Edwards, also expressed thanks to the public for the great response seen so far for the new bins. She insisted that although many residents won’t have seen the new carts in their area as yet, they will be reached eventually as the project is expected to take around eight months to be completed.

Edwards said: “We want residents to be mindful that we will get to everyone, we don’t want persons to worry [as] we have been seeing those queries from people in St. Philip wondering when we are going to get to them. We will get to you as the project is expected to last up to eight months.

“So far we do have some residents we might have missed because we were unable to locate the water meter as that can sometimes pose a challenge for our field officers, but persons have called in with their BWA (Barbados Water Authority) account number, and we have been able to get back out to them.”

Edwards gave an assurance that Barbados Water Authority account numbers seen on the bins are only being used for assigning businesses, and not for any other information from a resident. (SB)