Four groups have been wondering how to handle a longstanding solid waste disposal problem, and the individual causing the headache by stacking his house and yard with garbage from the public bins.
The groups are the Department of Health Protection; the Environmental Health Unit in collaboration with Elmoalis Ltd, one of Anguilla’s garbage collecting companies; and the West End Community. They met several days ago, to sort out the above worsening situation, and now have found that yet another group – the Psychiatric Unit – must be brought on board.
At the centre of the situation is a man whose name is Frederick (Kitty) Richardson. He is known to rummage garbage bins in the West End neighbourhood (and further away), removing large quantities of garbage and storing in his open house.
This has necessitated many visits to his home by environmental health officers – and the garbage collector to remove hundreds of bags of smelly and rodent-infested garbage for disposal at the Corito landfill. It has reached the stage where the officers are unable to continue the unpleasant work as Kitty is now allegedly storing human waste as well.
Accordingly, on Thursday, June 25, the above groups convened a town hall meeting at the Alwyn Allison Primary School at West End, a short distance north of where Kitty lives, to discuss the situation.
The meeting was chaired by Senior Environmental Officer, Mr. Leroy Richardson. He spoke about the need to obtain the views of the West End community on how to deal with a possible change in waste collection there “to prevent Kitty from collecting waste from the nearby garbage bins and stockpiling it in his home”. He noted that it was an on-going practice by Kitty, for over four or five years, leading to a pile up of hundreds of bags of garbage at any one time.
The Senior Environment Officer observed: The rationale for the preventative action is that there is a need “to address the major concern that the waste at Kitty’s house is an eyesore. This is particularly so as the garbage is stored along the road where tourists and other persons frequently travel, and it is having an impact on hotels, the environment, tourists and the island on a whole”.
He continued: “[Kitty’s] home is not only a storage for all types of garbage, but a harbourage for vermin (rats, roaches, centipedes and other insects) that is a platform for diseases as his home has become the distributor for pest infestation of surrounding homes.”
Mr. Hugo Rey, who represented Elmoalis Ltd. at the meeting, put forward a suggestion, as a pilot project, to deal with the problem. The suggestion was to strap the lids of the roadside garbage bins in the area with a 16-foot chain late at evenings, until early morning, to prevent Kitty from removing the garbage at nights. Also to increase the number of privately-held bins at homes in order to discourage Kitty from tampering with them.
Residents from among the West End community did not agree with locking the bins to which they wanted access at any given time. Some persons said that Kitty, in his earlier life, was of much help to them and now, that he had become mentally ill, attention should be focused on assisting him instead.
The general suggestion was that Kitty should be given psychiatric assistance and should be housed in an institution where he can be cared for, thus removing him from the area.
Mr. Cardigan Connor, the Elected Representative for West End, undertook to work with the community to bring the matter to the attention of the appropriate officials. The community, along with Mr. Connor, is expected to report back shortly to the Health Protection Department.
Meanwhile, aside from Kitty, there is another garbage problem at West End which is disturbing the Department of Health Protection and Elmoalis Ltd. It is that persons are depositing large quantities of solid waste over the cliffs at West End, beyond the reach of collectors, rather than taking it to the Corito landfill. The cliff-side waste has been described as unfortunate and an eyesore to travellers on sightseeing tours around the coastline on yachts and other pleasure boats.
