Our deadly littering habit

Thursday, October 29th 2009

Sanitary T&T citizens-will it ever happen? Or are T&T's citizens cursed to scourge the land as litterbugs forever?

The tattered streets and public spaces- malls, parks, schools, markets, night spots, rivers, beaches etc- tell a vivid story.

Litter is ever present throughout the length and breadth of the country-Tobago being an exception. What's more, the litterbugs exercise their deadly habit without shame of correction or fear of criminal prosecution.

How is littering deadly you might ask? Accumulated litter in waterways (drains, rivers) is a recipe for water stagnation, which creates breeding areas for mosquitoes such as the aedes aegypti-carrier of the deadly dengue virus.

Garbage-blocked waterways is also a recipe for flooding. What's in the water when it floods in your area? More than likely, hordes of deadly bacteria that would not as easily have made their way to you from drains, latrines and other saturated bacteria hotspots without the help of human litterbugs. Flies, cockroaches, rats and garbage go hand in hand. One housefly can carry over 33 million disease-causing microorganisms on the inner and outer surfaces of its body. Flies are known to be carriers of typhoid fever, cholera, diarrhoea, dysentery, tuberculosis, anthrax, and parasitic worms. Cockroaches are vectors of diseases such as dysentery, gastroenteritis, typhoid and poliomyelitis. Still the litterbug does not bear these facts in mind so he/she makes them at home by littering. The litterbug indirectly burdens the local health care system. Little wonder local health care providers collectively treat thousands of otherwise preventable bacterial infections annually. Local litterbugs also indirectly cost your regional corporations hundreds of thousands of dollars to clean up after them. Whereas garbage collection is meant as an orderly scheduled process the litterbug throws a spoke in the wheel by disposing of litter in non-designated areas. Out of this comes a law that rages against the law of logic and of the State's sanitation laws. That is that exposure to the philosophy of right and wrong, of cleanliness verses filthiness through education, does not guarantee that the majority of society will concur with either doing right or exercising hygienic sanitation practices. So much for faith in education. God, a higher brand of parenting and the law help us. B Joseph via e-mail Source: http://www.trinidadexpress.com/index.pl/article_opinion?id=161549867