Residents of a sections of Whitfield Town in lower St Andrew are begging the authorities to remove the piles of garbage that have been steadily building up in their community for some time now.
The pile-up has grown in one instance to the point where pedestrians are unable to use the affected roadway safely.
It is virtually impossible to walk along the sidewalk near the Chinese Cemetery on Waltham Park Road without having to wade through almost a sea of refuse.
According to residents, household and commercial garbage are dumped primarily from the main thoroughfares that run through the community.
At one point, it was indicated that community waste material from a Labour Day project have not yet been removed.
‘Renford’, a resident of the community, said the piles of garbage are visited by stray animals, rodents, roaches and other disease-carrying insects.
He complained that the stench emanating from the garbage is unbearable.
“You have a lot of pampers that the parents bring, come in the rubbish too and sometimes the truck don’t come for days. The stench starts wreaking all kinds of havoc,” he said.
Another man noted that he regularly has to ask persons not to dump garbage in front of his shop.
“If you don’t talk to them, they will want to dump it in front of the shop. Is road we have to walk on. Because, this morning, I go up to the clinic, (and) I walk on that side, (Chinese Cemetery). I had to come back up on this side, (as on the other side) nowhere on the sidewalk, you can’t walk,” the resident said.
A woman from the area pointed to a number of bags of garbage that were left there from Labour Day. She said due to the type of Labour Day garbage, it would be difficult to be removed with the use of the regular garbage disposal trucks.
“It cannot take up the garbage that are there because, as you can see, those have to go in the dumper truck or something (else). Those cannot go in the regular garbage truck,” she said.
Like other residents, she wants the garbage removed quickly, as the region is experiencing the hurricane season.
“I would love for it to remove ASAP because rats and all those stuffs are coming into the yard and, as you can see, there are houses that are close to the garbage heap,” she said.
