City Hall to address garbage-overwhelmed Stabroek Car Park –as Solid Waste Director calls on citizens to be more responsible

Georgetown: Failure on the part of citizens to adopt an environmentally friendly attitude towards the city of Georgetown has left sections of the city in an unsightly state one day before 2011 comes to an end. One conspicuous section of the city which, up to yesterday afternoon, was plagued with a litter dilemma was the Stabroek Market car park. The hideous accumulation of garbage was a mere few centimetres away from a Police Outpost which is accommodated in the same parking lot.

However, the presence of the law officials served as no deterrent to those who opted to strew waste materials across the area, which covered a significant portion of the public facility. According to Director of Solid Waste Management, Hubert Urlin, the Department is very much aware of the situation that has in recent times become a repetitive practice. He explained that although the Department has raised concern time and again of the situation citizens have not been supporting the municipal efforts to ensure the city remains in an acceptable state.  He disclosed too that while the City Constabulary is tasked with ensuring that persons refrain from littering the city, the limited resources of the municipality does not allow for continuous monitoring of the market area.  It is the Director’s belief that the littering practice is not merely the activity of vendors in the market but rather persons from various sections of the city.

He revealed too that efforts to keep some sections of the city free of garbage is further challenged by the fact that the municipality has not been able to retain the normal service of a private contractor thus the bulk of the city cleansing is undertaken by the municipality resources. However, Urlin assured yesterday that every possible measure will be employed by the municipality in order to have the Stabroek Market area completely cleaned by Sunday.  “We have already started making arrangements for it to be done over the weekend…up to last Sunday it was the same thing…We have been trying our best but the blame keeps coming right back to us…”

As a result, Urlin pointed to the need for citizens to be more responsible, adding that there is no way that the municipality can keep people from littering around the clock as it does not have unlimited resources to attend to such actions.