Piles of garbage across Co­corite and sur­round­ing ar­eas have be­come a ma­jor is­sue for res­i­dents and busi­ness­es in the com­mu­ni­ties.

Some res­i­dents claimed the garbage re­mained un­col­lect­ed for at least two weeks, lead­ing to over­flow­ing bins, trash spilling on­to side­walks, and a stench.

Coun­cil­lor for the St James West dis­trict, Im­ran Khan, weighed in on the is­sue.

“This is not just about an eye­sore; this is a pub­lic health con­cern that di­rect­ly af­fects the qual­i­ty of life for our res­i­dents and the vi­a­bil­i­ty of our lo­cal busi­ness­es,” said Khan. 

He shed light on the cause of the de­lay in garbage col­lec­tion.

“The un­for­tu­nate de­lay in garbage col­lec­tion was due to crit­i­cal re­pairs on the (Port-of-Spain) City Cor­po­ra­tion’s trucks, which are es­sen­tial to keep the sys­tem run­ning smooth­ly. We recog­nise the frus­tra­tion this has caused and are ac­tive­ly work­ing to en­sure these de­lays are min­imised mov­ing for­ward,” he ex­plained.

But Khan al­so point­ed out an ad­di­tion­al prob­lem com­pound­ing the garbage prob­lem in Co­corite—il­le­gal dump­ing.

“We’ve seen trash piles that clear­ly aren’t from this neigh­bour­hood,” he claimed. “It’s dis­heart­en­ing to see in­dis­crim­i­nate dump­ing on our road­sides, adding to the strain on al­ready full bins and cre­at­ing a greater chal­lenge for our clean-up teams. Il­le­gal dump­ing im­pacts every­one, and it’s time to hold those re­spon­si­ble ac­count­able for this dis­re­gard of com­mu­ni­ty spaces.”

Khan as­sured res­i­dents and busi­ness own­ers in the com­mu­ni­ties that clean-up and col­lec­tion op­er­a­tions were now back on track. Yes­ter­day, crews were out re­mov­ing garbage.

“We have put sys­tems in place to re­store nor­mal­cy. The Port-of-Spain City Cor­po­ra­tion has ded­i­cat­ed ex­tra re­sources to man­age this build-up, and we are com­mit­ted to keep­ing Co­corite clean and free from fu­ture is­sues like this.”

How­ev­er, some cor­po­ra­tion work­ers, who con­tact­ed Guardian Me­dia about the sit­u­a­tion, ex­pressed their dis­sat­is­fac­tion, say­ing that the cleanup could have been ad­dressed over the week­end to pre­vent fur­ther build-up.

“We could have made faster progress if we had the green light to work ex­tra hours,” shared one work­er, who wished to re­main anony­mous. “Un­for­tu­nate­ly, those week­end ef­forts weren’t sanc­tioned, which has on­ly pro­longed the cleanup process.”

In re­sponse, Khan said on­go­ing im­prove­ments to waste man­age­ment were tak­ing place. He said col­lec­tion plays a crit­i­cal role in keep­ing a clean en­vi­ron­ment and en­sur­ing the health and well-be­ing of the com­mu­ni­ty.