After not being able to keep to a strict garbage collection schedule because of recent heavy rains, the Department of Environmental Health Services (DEHS) will begin an intensive garbage collection schedule beginning today, Director Melanie McKenzie told The Nassau Guardian yesterday.
"The Ministry of Health and the Department of Environmental Health Services apologize to the public for the inconvenience experienced due to poor and inadequate garbage collection in recent weeks," they said in a release yesterday.
"The department is in the process of finalizing arrangements for the collection of all solid waste in New Providence over the next seven days."
DEHS said in the release that it will deploy its fleet to collect trash across New Providence with the help of Impact, United Sanitation, and Bahamas Waste "to collect the residential waste that has accumulated particularly following Hurricane Irene and the subsequent rains."
According to the release, residents will be advised through the media of collection days and are asked to bag their trash and place it by the roadside on those scheduled days.
One Oakes Field resident, who wished to not be named, said the garbage in his area was piled up higher than a man. He said it was a mixture of trash accumulated since the hurricane and regular household garbage.
The man complained that rats had begun to move into the trash and he was concerned about the overall unsanitary nature of the hoard of garbage in his front yard and his neighbors' yards.
McKenzie said DEHS was unable to keep with its schedule due to the weather, as well as other reasons she did not disclose.
However, she said the department is hoping to get customers back to their regular once-per-week collection schedule.

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