SSA in plea to City businesses on proper waste disposal

The Sanitation Service Authority (SSA) has pleaded with business owners in and around Bridgetown to dispose of their waste in the proper containers to avoid litter and health concerns arising just before the Christmas period.

SSA Public Relations Officer Carl Padmore told Barbados TODAY that SSA workers have been experiencing difficulty in City garbage collection, particularly in the way some business owners have been getting rid of boxes that once held goods.

“The SSA is very concerned about a number of things we are seeing developing in and around Bridgetown,” he said. “We appreciate the fact that store owners would have to dispose of the boxes and other items, but we would appreciate if they would flatten them, tape them or tie them so that it is easier for us to remove [them] as the SSA.

“What we are seeing though is that the boxes are just being thrown out, the wind is taking them and blowing them across the street, and making our job quite difficult.”

He added that restaurants have also been dumping their used oil in cans set aside for disposing of other waste the SSA normally collects. Padmore stressed that oil and similar liquids are not to be dumped in bins but collected by oil recyclers.

“Because they are a number of restaurants in and around Bridgetown, we are seeing the guys leave the oil for the SSA to pick up and to be removed, said the SSA spokesman. “The oil should not be [comingled] with the normal refuse; we’d like them to desist from this; they have to find a recycler to deal with the oil. The oil should not be making its way into our compactor trucks.”