Dear Editor
It must be clearly evident even to the youngest child that in spite of all the hundreds of millions of dollars allegedly spent on cleaning up and restoring our Garden City, and all the boastfulness about making Georgetown a Green City, our capital is once again and quite rapidly becoming the Garbage City of the Caribbean.

A very clear example of the circumstances to which I refer can be viewed aback the headquarters of the former Guyana National Cooperative Bank at Lombard and Cornhill Streets, which always has heaps of garbage piled up and being rummaged by junkies, who add their own human waste to the pile after litter-picking.

What is ironic, is that the few old garbage trucks rumbling through the streets, supposedly on a mission to clean up the city, actually pollutes it more with billowing black smoke spurting from the exhaust pipes of these trucks that seem to be on their last legs so to speak. How does filling the atmosphere with carbon monoxide fit in to their green agenda? Do those trucks make it all the way to Haags Bosch? Is there no age limit for the importation of these trucks?

There are heaps of garbage at the front of alleyways, and all along many of our roadways. Our depressed areas are teeming with garbage. Where have all the receptacles gone to?        

And the Council’s response to all of this is to charge householders who don’t have garbage bins and to prosecute private citizens when someone else throws garbage unknowing to them in front of their premises. There is a clear disconnect between those prosecuting and those responsible for refuse collection at City Hall, as many times persons are charged for having litter in front of their residences or business places when this is due to the fact that the garbage truck had never passed by to pick up the refuse at the appointed time and day.                              

Why does the city not place plastic recycling machines around the shopping areas, or pay the social rejects to pick up plastic bottles and other plastic containers and return them to the City Council, where they could be shredded and used in a recycling process.

Regards
Anu Bihari