The Solid Waste Management Corporation (SWMC) National Cleanup Campaign moved into its seventh week this past weekend with mop up activities. The mop activities this past weekend stopped in communities from Sandy Point to Camps and the week before focused on areas in Basseterre and surrounding environs. Mop up involves revisiting communities that were already involved in the exercise but may have been missed by the initial cleanup. Ms. Tyasha Henry, Collections Officer noted that everyone in the areas are welcome to dump their items in the bin during the mop up activities. “People have been calling and requested the bins because in some areas, the bins could not have been placed or maybe we overlooked. People in the community have been coming forward and assisting us to get their (garbage) out,” Ms. Henry explained. “Once you see a bin in your area, you can go and place your stuff in the bins. The bins are available to everyone in the area,” she added.

The SWMC Collections Officer said the reaction to the National Cleanup Campaign is positive. “Everyone is thanking Solid Waste for coming up with this idea and they said we should be doing it more often,” Ms. Henry said. “We will see what we can do later on.”

Meanwhile, some residents from New Road spoke positively about the cleanup exercise. “It’s very timely for one because I know there are lots of instances where persons have garbage within their households and within their yards and they have this sense I am not going to get moved because I can’t afford a bin. This is certainly an opportunity for us,” Mr. Chesil Hamilton, a resident of New Road said. “I think that the effort by SWMC is a timely effort and we are very receptive to it.” He said there was a bin in the area in the initial cleanup in New Road, but many residents were unable to use the bin due to the distance of where it was placed from their homes. After a request to have another bin in the community, closer to some of these residents, the SWMC consented and Mr. Hamilton expressed satisfaction at this.

Another resident said that the Cleanup Campaign is a good initiative. “There are so many people with stuff in their yard but they don’t have the means of getting them (to the landfill). This is a good thing….I am happy to see that people are getting the effort to get the things out of their yard,” she said. Another gentleman expressed similar sentiments: “Some people have some stuff to throw away and they find it difficult to get them thrown away…I tip my hat off to (the SWMC),” he said.

The mop up activities for the cleanup campaign will into this weekend and extended if necessary. Over the last seven weeks, the SWMC has been engaged in a National Clean Up Campaign, where bins have been placed in certain areas of communities all around the island in a bid to remove bulky waste, green waste and white goods free of cost to residents.