Bagged waste outside home is not littering

Residents openly objected to being fined by the wardens for placing their bagged waste (garbage) on the sidewalk outside of their homes to be removed by the waste collection vehicles of the corporation.

How can the placement of properly bagged waste at the front of your property for collection be assessed as littering? If that is littering, then we (the public) who have assiduously bagged and placed in like manner as those Woodbrook residents are all guilty of littering.

The questions to be answered by the Chief Public Health Inspector of the corporation, who is responsible for the training of the litter wardens, are: * Can each resident be provided with a guaranteed time frame of between 10 to 15 minutes when the corporation can provide the collection service to the individual household on a set schedule? * Has the corporation issued in the past year any directive to residents, either through the media, by pamphlets to the mail boxes of each household or by public loud speakers, that waste in bags outside of homes will not be collected but that all households are required to place bagged waste in containers attached to their outside wall? (Please note that litter baskets on outside walls have attracted more litter as passers-by use them as litter bins.) * Is the Chief Public Health Inspector aware that at present in Woodbrook the corporation has workers who remove bags from outside of individual residences and place them in heaps in the drain at different points on the street long before the arrival of the collection truck? * Why are bagged yard cuttings not being collected by the regular waste collection vehicle? * Why do litter wardens work only between 8 am and 4 pm when those who generate dump sites in residential areas do so after normal working hours? The corporation should commiserate with the Woodbrook residents and all other burgesses to work together for cleaner communities.

Littering is the discarding of waste in an indiscriminate manner and not waste that is bagged and placed outside of your home for an expected collection on the day.

However, where residents place bagged waste by the street corners to create dump sites, if caught they should be charged. In an effort to avoid further occurrences and conflict, the corporation must embark on a proper educational programme that would address the issues. It is hoped that the mayor, councillors, aldermen and the administration of the corporation would make all attempts to resolve this issue amicably to ensure that sense prevails.

Finally, one wonders if the litter warden would have taken the same belligerent and forthright approach to issue a ticket to a residents of some other areas of Port of Spain.

ALBAN C SCOTT Woodbrook