Tougher penalties needed for illegal dumpers

An appeal has been made to authorities to impose harsher punishments on illegal dumpers.

National Communications Director for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, Kathie Daniel, made the call on Monday during a ceremony to unveil a bench at the bus stop outside the Maurice Byer Polyclinic to commemorate her team of Clean Up Barbados 2022 volunteers’ removal of 66 150 pounds of illegally discarded materials.

She said illegal dumping in Barbados was now beyond ridiculous, as she called for stiffer sentences to be imposed on offenders.

“I would like to see people punished for doing this nonsense. There is no excuse… it’s just laziness, ignorance, and the kind of thing that makes me want to do like Jesus in the temple and break furniture and pelt blows,” Daniel said.

“I get very passionate about this because I am not going to go into your house and leave my trash all over the place, so why do we do it out in public? It’s our island, it’s our home.”

Senior Medical Officer at the Ministry of Health and Wellness Dr Leslie Rollock, who also spoke during the brief ceremony, lamented the illegal dumping situation.

She noted that while individuals were also guilty of the bad practice, private waste haulers who were often paid to get rid of waste the legal way were far too often using the island’s gullies and other unapproved areas as dumping grounds.

“We are aware that there is a lot of illegal dumping going on . . . . Over all the years that we have been trying, when you clean a dump, unfortunately, it makes way for other people to go put stuff back.

“Part of the difficulty is that there is no way to tie the garbage to the person that is putting it there…. You may be able to say whose garbage it is but the person that dumped it there may be the person that they paid to take it to the dump,” Dr Rollock said.

The Ministry of Health official advised people who hire waste haulers to follow up with them and ask for receipts to prove the garbage was dumped at legal sites. (SB)