NSWMA to Zone Garbage Collection in Western Jamaica

To facilitate improvements to the garbage collection schedule in western Jamaica, the National Solid Waste Management Authority (NSWMA) will be dividing the parishes of Trelawny, St. James, Hanover, and Westmoreland into zones.
Executive Director of the NSWMA, Joan Gordon-Webley, says personnel from the agency’s Planning Department have completed a zoning survey, which will be implemented soon.
“Within a very short time, we will be taking that (zoning survey) to the Contractor General. We are going to be saying to persons within the areas, ‘for those who are interested in running a section of this region, you are welcome to apply;’ it will be up for tender soon.
“So we (NSWMA) are going to play more of an administrative role, where we monitor those persons to whom we will give contracts, that they will have to win by tender,” she informed a Town Hall meeting at the Hanover Parish Council in Lucea on Friday, July 11, which was attended by State Minister in the Office of the Prime Minister with responsibility for Local Government Reform, Robert Montague.
Additionally, Mrs. Webley advised that the NSWMA recently acquired some 100 vehicles to assist with the collection of solid waste. She also informed said that private garbage collectors will soon be required to get their operations licensed to facilitate more efficient collection and disposal of domestic and commercial solid waste.
“Not only are we going to make sure that your garbage is collected on time, (but when we) finish the zoning, we will be placing in the newspaper a schedule of when your garbage is to be collected, and how many days per week it is to be collected,” she told the Hanovarians.
The NSWMA head also outlined a number of new initiatives to be implemented to ensure efficient operations at the island’s landfills, pointing out that these will include the availability of trucks to supplement units owned by contractors that may invariably become inoperable.