On Monday, the Couva/Tabaquite/Talparo Regional Corporation marshalled its forces to begin the clean-up of the Carli Bay area.
Armed with trash bags and accompanied by trucks, the Corporation’s Councillors and other members of staff worked to reclaim one of the recreation areas in the community.
Located about fifteen minutes from Couva, Carli Bay became an eyesore due to indiscriminate dumping.
Chairman of the Corporation, Ryan Rampersad, said the area had been neglected because of a lack of funding.
“This is a beachfront known as the Carli Bay area. It joins Orange Valley to the north. We have the Waterloo area also, and we want to encourage people to utilise this space for recreation in Central Trinidad. This is one of our beachfronts, very important, and we have a lot of plans so we are here to really bring a big boost of assistance in the area, clean it up.”
The Councillor for the Calcutta/McBean area, Allan Rampersad, warned residents and those outside the community against dumping garbage in the area.
“We are very equipped with our litter warden, environment officers now, and I don’t care who the officers catch, right? And they get their ticket; let them pay their penalty because not only here alone, we have it in the environment, in the community of Orange Valley too, at Bay Road there where people going and dumping. At Exchange, certain areas in the community here.”
Councillor for the Couva West/Roystonia area, Vanessa Kussie, noted that the indiscriminate dumping also affects the area’s fisherfolk.
“It affects the fishermen from coming down to the beachfront because when they do the illegal dumping, whoever is responsible for doing it and the vehicles are coming down, they actually dump on the sides of the road. Some as bold face will dump at the beginning of the road so they will be blocking the entrance of coming down on the roadway. And we are asking you to please stop doing this.”
Mr Rampersad noted that the clean-up is not a one-day event.
“We are assisting with the clean-up here today. We have maybe about 15 truckloads of garbage to be carted away. We have carted away a couple truckloads already last week. We are continuing today and tomorrow and the remainder of the week. This area is very, very important to us, and as it has gone into a state of disrepair, you hardly find the crowds coming into this part of Central Trinidad.”
The Corporation’s Chairman noted that every regional corporation operates a bulk waste collection programme to ensure the safe disposal of appliances and other bulky household waste. As such, he said there is no justification for continuing to dump these items in community green spaces, which should be preserved for public use and environmental enjoyment.