Matrimony and managing solid waste

Do waste and weddings go together? They do on the lawn in front of President’s House where, as a Friend of the Botanical Gardens, one Saturday morning a few weeks ago, armed with a Litter Picker, I collected a large, black garbage bag full of crown corks and bottle tops, glass and plastic bottles, cigarette packs, packs and small plastic pots that once contained reels of film, styrotex cups, plates, newspapers — and enough sprays of plastic flowers to make a wedding bouquet from flower beds, around the benches and on the lawn itself.

Given the divorce statistics these days many think traditional white weddings are an appalling waste of money. However, even though June is the month of brides and white weddings, it wasn’t the frills and furbelows, whistles and bells of white weddings (or even the waste in front of President’s House) that, way back in 1981, prompted me to write  —  with many apologies to The Book of Common Prayer . . . “Managing Solid Waste is like matrimony: it is not to be enterprised nor taken in hand unadvisedly, lightly, want only to satisfy men’s carnal lusts and appetites for clean scenes like brute beasts that have no understanding of the many problems of collection and disposal of garbage, but reverently, discreetly, advisedly, soberly and in the fear of environmentalists and conservationists, duly considering the causes for which the Management of Solid Waste was ordained.

Motorists who have been steupsing every time they pass a certain heap of garbage that’s been a feature of the scenic Lady Young Road for the past two months or more, would do well to ponder on this preamble. Readers who rarely travel that route into the capital aren’t likely to be aware of the tug of-war that takes place every time the boundless enthusiasm of Solid Waste meets the normal working routines of the St George County Council. Solid Waste, having proved its worth in the miraculous post-Carnival clean-up —with the full approval of the Port-of-Spain City Fathers — met its match in the biggest local authority in Trinidad. That much was obvious to all who noted the huge, beautiful blue-and-white garbage container bearing the legend “Solid Waste Management Company Limited” which was left, most discreetly, just around the bend (and well out of sight of) the large, unlovely heap of garbage on the Lady Young Road.

Some three or four days later that blue-and-white container was reverently removed. Whatever garbage it contained, and from whence that garbage came, none could tell — but the awful eyesore around the corner remained until Saturday, June 6 (1981, remember) as a monument to what Solid Waste can, and cannot, do. It seems the Company cannot tread on the toes of the St George County Council whose prerogative it is to collect the garbage on the Lady Young. To carry off that heap of garbage unadvisedly, lightly and wantonly would bring down the wrath of County Councillors with the full force and majesty of the Law. Solid Waste can, and does advise the County Council by telephone (when they can get connected) but more they cannot do beyond the gentle hint of leaving one of their containers conveniently close to the garbage (as they did on the Lady Young Road).

The collection of visible roadside garbage is but one of Solid Waste’s problems, and is but the tip of the stinking berg dumped out of sight of motorists all over Trinidad. Or so the Solid Waste people say — and one can well believe it. Plans must be made, equipment ordered and a labour force trained to collect garbage from traces, lanes and alleys in squatter settlements where few, if any, county council garbage collectors have dared or cared to enter. This is no light undertaking since basketball is the sacred pastime of many unemployed youth who do not take kindly to interruptions of serious practice sessions to allow scavengers to do their work. The anger of the sporting youth of the nation is only matched by those worthies who want the garbage cleared away, but object violently to the desecration of swampland (and quite right, too) while those who make a living out of garbage put in their two cent’s worth on being deprived of their means of livelihood when the garbage is covered with earth. This, in turn, brings out the conservationists who demand to know where the earth to cover the garbage is coming from, and why no one is designing and building recycling plants for the national refuse.

 At which point the worthies part company with the professional scavengers - and Solid Waste could well be forgiven for holding its collective head and bawling. Which is why the management of Solid Waste is like matrimony; the plans are made, the ceremony has been performed by Government, the bare bones of equipment are the gifts of taxpayers, the post-carnival honeymoon is over, and Solid Waste and the public are slowly and painfully learning to live together like any other young couple. Hopefully, the mothers-in-law of County Councillors will leave them alone to work things out without interference. Let us hope that as time goes by this will be a long and very happy marriage.” Solid Waste has had many ups and downs since then, mostly, of late, downs. Smoke still rises from the Beetham Landfill as scavengers burn the plastic coatings off valuable copper wire. Blown by the Trade Winds that smoke, laden with carcinogens (cancer causing agents), spreads a transparent veil over the city, entering air conditioning ducts, irritating lungs, threatening the elderly, asthmatics and small children. The Beetham is coming to the end of its days - and still there is no sign of a new site for the city’s garbage. And now, there is CEPEP . . .