Thompson warns of public health risks from illegal dumping

Barbadians who continue to dump waste irresponsibly are putting the nation’s health and water supply at risk, Deputy President of the Senate Elizabeth Thompson has warned, as she condemned the widespread practice of illegal dumping during a parliamentary debate on Wednesday. 

As the Senate took up the Storm Water Management Bill, a former minister of health who became a senior United Nations environment envoy, decried an alarming frequency with which household and commercial waste was being dumped into drains, gullies and open spaces.

“We as Barbadians have a responsibility to consider what we do with our waste,” she said. “There are restaurants and small businesses that dump their oils and waste into gutters and drains. There are those who slaughter animals and dump the offal into gullies or drains. There are people who, when they are finished with the old mattress with all its body fluids and whatever else, just drop it outside in somebody’s backyard.”

She noted that illegal dumping of household items — from rusting refrigerators and bathtubs to broken stoves — creates breeding grounds for mosquitoes and vermin.

“They complain that there is an outbreak of dengue in the community. It can be traced directly back to our personal behaviour. It creates habitats for other vermin. What are we as individuals and citizens doing in the protection of our own health, of our own lives, and of our open spaces?” the senator asked.

Senator Thompson expressed grave concern over the unknown chemicals being dumped in gullies and drains, highlighting the potential long-term contamination of Barbados’s underground water system.

She explained: “We do not know what chemicals are dumped in gullies or drains. When people who go to work in those spaces clean behind those who have dumped, they are at risk. Not only are they at risk, but the water system is at risk because our water seeps from the surface level into the underground, and is then filtered towards the reservoirs. If dangerous chemicals are dumped, they can end up in the water system.”

She also criticised commercial waste hauliers who, despite being paid by households and businesses to legally dispose of waste, instead opt to dump it illegally to avoid travelling the short distance to the landfill — where, she noted, there is no tipping fee.

Senator Thompson called on citizens to return to the practices of previous generations, when Barbadians took pride in keeping their surroundings clean. 

(SB)