Cleaning up Ja
published: Friday | September 5, 2003
THE EDITOR, Sir:
IF PEOPLE feel boxed in, hopeless, and ignored many of them may respond in a disorderly and unlawful manner. Let us work more on taking industries to the rural areas so that people are less enticed to migrate to urban areas that are already so overcrowded and overburdened. Let us activate the police to enforce the laws that are breached and blatantly broken each day particularly those laws relating to squatting and littering. Land owners/occupiers must be made responsible for the upkeep of buildings and lands at a specified minimal level. The many land strips adjacent to gullies that have become prime squatter settlements must be cleared, planted with trees and maintained. There must be an established programme in which public areas are regularly cleaned - roads, parks, parking areas, bus bays, public lavatories, etc.
With all my dreams of a cleaner more pleasing-to-look-at and pleasing-to-live-in environment the actions of many of my fellow Jamaicans just daunt me. Imagine an elderly man with what appears to be the remains of about three mattresses walking in broad daylight on Red Hills Road in a crowded area and dumping these mattresses in the gully. A close relative of mine said she looked in dismay as the man disposed of his refuse seemingly oblivious to those around him. Is this now the norm? Are we to just sit back and watch the entire nation become a pile of garbage infested by mosquitoes and every kind of disease-causing rodents?
