New garbage trucks get DEH back on track

| 07/08/2020 | 35 Comments
Cayman News Service
DEH Director Richard Simms at the George Town dump

(CNS): The long-awaited delivery of new garbage trucks has been received by the Department of Environmental Health, and according to DEH Director Richard Simms, all of them were expected to be on the road this week with five new drivers starting work. Simms said that the department was well, if not fully, equipped and was catching up with garbage collection.

“We are in a much better place,” he told Finance Committee last week, adding that garbage was now being collected on schedule. “We are improving but don’t expect big things just yet, but big things are coming.”

The department now has eleven garbage trucks on the road, which are all working two shifts, beginning at 1am in the morning.

Simms said DEH was doing extensive work with the new grabber truck cleaning up derelict vehicles. He said the truck was also being used to get a grip on the illegal dumping and fly-tipping that is going on around the islands on empty lots, street-side and other places, causing a nuisance as well as a health hazard to affected neighbourhoods.

“It is important to remember that we must all do our part to protect the environment, Simms said in a press release from his department a few days after his appearance before Finance Committee.

“Clean air, water, soil and green spaces greatly enhance the quality of our lives as well as reduces mortality and morbidity. During the pandemic we all have received another important lesson in how important it is to take care of our environment.”

The penalty for littering is a fine of up to $500 or six months imprisonment.

To find out more about how to get rid of your unwanted household items and how to report illegal dumping in your community visit the DEH website.


Share your vote!


How do you feel after reading this?
  • Fascinated
  • Happy
  • Sad
  • Angry
  • Bored
  • Afraid
Print Friendly, PDF & Email

Tags: , , , ,

Category: Environmental Health, Health

Comments (35)

Trackback URL | Comments RSS Feed

  1. Anonymous says:

    New trucks every year! Its like working for Santa Claus.

    5
    1
  2. Anonymous says:

    Let see… no garbage from monthly 200k+ visitors and still “catching up with collections”? How come? Where the garbage coming from?

    5
    1
  3. Anonymous says:

    Wow! What pleases some people? Complain when garbage isn’t collected and complain when it’s done before 6 am. Probably would complain if garbage were collected after 6 am and impeded morning traffic also!

    Get a life and be satisfied that we have some reasonable regularity of collection!!

    9
    5
    • Anonymous says:

      In every civilized country garbage collectors are prohibited from disturbing residents before 6am. There’s is a reason that a person must have at least 7 hours of uninterrupted sleep.
      Just look how many doctors the Cayman Islands have-people are sufferings from all kind of disorders, young and old. And yes, noise, extreme noise, translated to basic physics is an energy that travels in waves and measured in decibels. Just like ripples in water it affects, disturbs every cell in a living thing, including a human body. Constant exposure to loud noise is deleterious for cardiovascular, endocrine and nervous system.
      The way things are in the Cayman Islands when it comes to noise pollution are not normal. Nothing to be pleased about.

      6
      1
      • Anonymous says:

        Welcome to uncivilized island living. You can not change the culture. Your welcome to try and I hope you do good.

  4. Anonymous says:

    Overtime anyone?

  5. Anonymous says:

    Improvement from the last dreamer now running around promoting healthy products and living after leaving an environmental disaster at the dump.How ironic is that ? He needed to be held accountable for the disastrous mess and serious threat to our lives he left the garbage dump in.Shame on this government for not taking decisive action against him instead giving him big payoff what a national disgrace!

    47
    1
    • Anonymous says:

      10.35 I’ll help you out here. He’s not an ex-pat.

      15
    • Anonymous says:

      I think you’ll find that the responsibility trickled up so no punishing him without shooting themselves in the foot.

      For example the old director said they needed more trucks. The Minister said in the LA actually they didn’t need more trucks. The then head of Govt vehicles said they could fix the old trucks. The head of vehicles is now the head of DEH and is celebrating … new trucks. (The Minister is silent.)

  6. Anonymous says:

    The project engineer involved with the dump is no longer working with CIG.

    5
    1
  7. Anonymous says:

    Maybe they can stop waking us up once a week at 03.00 a.m.

    7
    19
  8. Anonymous says:

    Congrats on the new equipment.
    Please take care of the new trucks and maintain them properly!

    25
    • Anonymous says:

      Do not count on them being maintained properly. They will be run into the ground in 3 years if past experience is applied.

  9. Anonymous says:

    Should be less garbage with no visitors. Isn’t it the case?

    36
  10. anon says:

    Hopefully the grabber truck can grab a few chickens on its rounds.

    17
    3
  11. Anonymous says:

    Leave the commercial skip rental & clearing to the private sector. Get out of that business. My company switched over 3 years ago – not a single complaint.
    DoEH, insist that all commercial & multi-unit residential complexes adhere to the current law – use a skip not multiple bins. Bo not waste you employees time emptying 10/15 bins when 1 skip would do.

    25
    3
    • Anonymous says:

      If the private sector can do it so well they can just outcompete DEH and DEH will get out of the commercial bulk waste business naturally. Or do the companies need protection from competition?

      You are quite correct that what is needed is regulation and enforcement that any multi-unit building needs a skip; retrofitted if necessary. (Want to turn a house into a tenement? Find place for the skip.)

      • Anonymous says:

        Out completing DoEH would be easy if they charged what it actually cost them to carry out the service- labour, insurance, pension, health, maintenance, fuel, depreciation, etc.
        As it is the private cost is only marginally more and the service is way better.
        p.s. – I am simply a user of the service.

  12. Anonymous says:

    The Dump has no vents for the ever accumulating methane to escape.

    “Explaining how a deep seated fire starts, he [Richard Simms] said, “The landfill has methane gas built up in it …and things are moving constantly in there. All you need is a little pocket and a little friction, combustion, and the fire starts. The landfill could be on fire for weeks and we don’t even know until it finds its way to the top.”

    “Simms admitted there is no way of guaranteeing that another fire cannot happen, they can only continue to do what they have been doing, which is “to compact it, put fill on top and compact it some more. Those things are preventative measures“

    1989:
    “Mr. Miller spoke of “the threats of pollution from leach heads” and “the threat of a methane bomb going off on the outskirts of George Town at any time.

    “If they think this is not a problem, go up to the dump and walk around,” he said. “Look at the leach head that is threatening the North Sound.”

    Mr. Miller said the government had been consulting with representatives of the Pan American Health Organization and the World Health Organization about the issue “on a regular basis for some time.”

    Now can someone who always calls me dimwit guarantee that explosion isn’t going to happen.
    It did happen in Mexico https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=WcXg05kZl64 35 years of methane accumulation they say.

    Mini-Beirut anyone?

    14
    5
  13. Proudcivilservant says:

    A major improvement since Simms took over. Thank you CIG and Mr Simms you and your teams have been doing an excellent job.

    23
    14
  14. Anonymous says:

    Ok, good job, but remember we used to have twice a week pickup like normal places.

    26
    3
    • Anonymous says:

      The LAW states twice a week collection.

      19
      2
    • Anonymous says:

      In Canada, we have garbage collection only once every 2 weeks, but recycling green waste and glass/bottles/tins/cardboard/mixed paper happens every week. Lots of opportunity for recycling to expand in Cayman to divert items away from the landfill.

      6
      1
  15. Anonymous says:

    theyll soon destroy that one

    40
    3
  16. Anonymous says:

    So whats up with the dump?

    22
    1
    • Anonymous says:

      The Dump is not an issue for politicians in Cayman including the MLA who has the Dump in his constituency. Has he ever said anything about the issue?

Leave a Reply to Anonymous Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.