Health official, linking rats to refuse, urges end to dumping, litter

Health official, linking rats to refuse, urges end to dumping, litter

A Ministry of Health official has renewed calls for Barbadians to stop dumping garbage, particularly along the island’s coasts.

Trevor Taylor, Senior Environmental Health Officer with the Ministry of Health, made the call as the ministry joined with the Pirate’s Inn hotel to launch an anti-littering sign at the Richard C Haynes Boardwalk in Hastings on Friday.

The sign is part of the Environmental Health Department’s rat eradication campaign.

“One of our major challenges is that there are many bins on the boardwalk, but for some reason or another, persons prefer to just toss their litter one side,” said Taylor. “In essence that is in a sense providing food for the rats. So when the Ministry of Health is baiting the area, you are providing food for the rats, then the rats would choose that food instead of the bait being provided.

“The Ministry of Health baits the area [regularly], but we are consistently seeing persons dumping the bits of food, the garbage and so on, alongside the edge of the boardwalk and other parts of Barbados. We are hoping that this venture, this is the starting point, we are hoping that we can move along down to Bridgetown and up to the south coast as well.”

Health authorities have observed a slight drop in the rodent population in the Boardwalk area, said the environmental office, but Taylor added that more needed to be done as he urged Barbadians to curb their littering habits.

Renee Coppin, who owns Pirate’s Inn and Infinity on the Beach hotels, told Barbados TODAY: “The boardwalk has become a part of the reason why a lot of our guests come to Barbados and enjoy the island, it is a beautiful space for them to do recreation, to walk, and really it’s important for us as Barbadians to recognise that these types of things do not benefit tourism, they also benefit us.

“The message of not littering is really important here because of the type of space it is, but also generally for the island. Barbados does have a little bit of a challenge with litter, and I think Barbadians need to have a shift in consciousness. There is no reason why we can not brand ourselves as the cleanest island in the Caribbean.”

(SB)