St. Kitts and Nevis (WINN): The Solid Waste Management Corporation (SWMC) is receiving an increase in complaints of people dumping waste in waste disposal bins belonging to other persons in their communities.
“We’ve been getting complaints that persons are taking their garbage and throwing it into other persons’ bins, and that too is an offence,” said Lorne DeSouza, litter warden from the SWMC, during the March 1 broadcast of Talking Trash on WINN.
The Public Relations Officer of the SWMC, Nama, spoke about a complaint she recently received regarding dumping in other people’s waste bins.
“I actually got a complaint about that last week as well. Someone is going down, [in that community people’s] bins are carried down to a particular area, and so the individual takes their bins strolls down early in the morning take his or her garbage from their bin places it into other people’s bins and then [the person] strolls back up the road with [the] bin.”
WINN called the SWMC for the penalty of such an act and was informed that there was no official penalty at the moment.
The PRO, during the show, noted that the government issued bins are tagged and can be traced. She advised that individuals not take other people’s bins.
The representatives from the SWMC were addressing what constitutes litter and in what instances is an individual littering, according to the prohibition on the disposal of litter regulations in the Solid Waste Management Act.
Case in point; if you dispose of biodegradable items (fruit peels and shellings etc.) outside of a waste bin, it is considered littering.
The Public Relations Officer of the SWMC recounted instances where people would say that an item is considered biodegradable as an excuse to dump that waste on public or private spaces. According to the Act’s definition of litter, anything disposed of or discarded, including biodegradable matter, is litter.
The SWMC is actively cracking down on illegal dumping problems within the Federation of St. Kitts and Nevis.
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