Online, the Department of Environmental Health (DEH) states that garbage is supposed to be collected from residences once a week, on the day listed (here is the link). However, over a two-and-a-half-week period recently in the Rum Point area, garbage wasn’t even collected once. And it wasn’t just us, the road as far into town as Savannah was lined with overflowing bins of trash. No one’s garbage seems to be being collected in a timely fashion. And this isn’t the first time we’ve experienced long stretches of no garbage collection.
Is the online schedule just out of date? When and how often is garbage really going to be collected? It’s hard to plan for when to put the garbage bins out without knowing the schedule for collection.
Auntie’s answer: While I did not get an explanation for the specific issue you addressed, a DEH spokesperson did discuss problems with delayed garbage collection in general.
It was confirmed that the schedule posted on the DEH website is correct. Each designated area is supposed to get once-a-week pickup. However, the DEH acknowledged that there are times “where we are unable to collect areas as scheduled. In such instances, outstanding areas are usually collected within a 48-hour timeframe.”
But, as you say, the garbage in question remained untouched for more than two weeks. In cases such as that, the DEH asks you contact them by phone (949-6696) or email. In addition, the DEH posts updates on any delays in collection on its Facebook page.
Why are we complaining about the garbage not being collected? It is a service offered by the Government of the Cayman Islands to collect to garbage accumulated by residents and dispose of it on our behalf.
We’ve been told there are staffing and equipment issues as an explanation why we are having this situation. Does this mean we are going to sit and let OUR own garbage bins overflow? Where has our sense of pride in cleanliness gone?
Stop complaining about the garbage not being collected in a timely manner and take action! Appreciate your garbage collectors, they willingly pick up your trash so that you won’t have to. Let’s just show them a bit of appreciation and support during these times, by simply taking the trash to the landfill ourselves.
If you don’t like to see your own trash bins overflowing into the street, there’s a simple solution…..take it to the dump yaself!
You are missing the point. Government pays a lot of money to operate the DEH are we supposed to just accept this waste of millions of our tax dollars because they can’t stick to the schedule and dump our garbage ourselves ? If that is the case I need a tax refund. And yes we do pay taxes to provide the service it was added to the customs duty years ago
also impossible to comment on page
I don’t blame them for that. I want them picking up garbage, not on Facebook chatting to people. (Even if we are all customers.)
Facebook: the worst thing to happen to mass communication since the loss of the party line. Govt. agencies assume that by ‘posting on Facebook’ everyone will know what is going on. Considering that DEH (in this example) have 234 people following their Facebook page, on an island of 60,000 people that means that less than 0.4% of the country got the news. You’d have a higher penetration rate getting the local DJs to make the announcement on a Friday night in the clubs. Press Releases may be derided in this day and age of antisocial media but sending an announcement to all local media has to have a better penetration rate than the DEH Facebook Page.