Basseterre, St. Kitts, November 30, 2018 (SKNIS): A new system of garbage collection will be commissioned by January 2019 in St. Kitts. This New Collection Model is expected to address several issues related to the current system of garbage collection.
In the current system, garbage is collected within eleven zones in St. Kitts. This, said General Manager of the Solid Waste Management Corporation (SWMC), Keithley Phillip, is not efficient as it is a wide range for the collectors to cover. The new system will divide the zones into 27 smaller areas to more efficiently collect garbage. The general manager invites all independent garbage collectors to come on board with the new initiative, as more trucks will be needed.
He stated that the existing collection model is divided into two parts.
“[The first part] involves us going to households once per week. By us, I mean the members of the Solid Waste Management Corporation, collectors from St. Kitts-Nevis Disposals (SKANDIS), Admiral's Enterprises Ltd. and D&D Services. Their mandate is to go to the houses in certain areas and collect the waste,” he said.
The second option is placing bins in certain areas, added Mr. Phillip. “I’m not a fan of the bins because wherever they are placed, people indiscriminately come and throw anything in,” he said. “The bins are put there for community households. We find people are throwing in TVs, dead dogs, faeces, broken glass, lightbulbs and needles. When our workers go to empty the bins, they run the risk of being injured.” The new collection model is intended by and large to address that problem, said the general manager.
He added that, hopefully, by January 2019, the corporation will be in a position to do the door-to-door collection, twice per week, island-wide. For now, it is being tested in several areas and will be subsequently implemented throughout St. Kitts in phases.
“The door-to-door collection will be done twice per week, especially in the built-up areas,” he said. “We are now doing that in Bird Rock, Earl Morne, Mattingley and the Camps area where the vans go twice per week.”
Signage will be placed in the areas to show the days and times of collection.
“The intent [of the signage] really is to educate the householders as to when their garbage will be collected,” he said. “We do not want persons to bring out their garbage, for example, in the night and leave it so that dogs or vagrants kick them over and then dirty the place. So we want to give persons a set time to bring their waste out.”
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