WPM pulls garbage trucks from neighbouring parishes to address St James’ waste backlog
Published:Saturday | October 25, 2025 | 12:05 AM
WESTERN BUREAU:
The National Solid Waste Management Authority’s (NSWMA) Western Parks and Markets Limited (WPM) has pulled several garbage trucks from neighbouring parishes to help clear the backlog of trash, which has built up in St James over the past two months.
The action is a countermeasure to prevent uncollected garbage from getting into and potentially clogging drains, which would be a recipe for flooding should Tropical Storm Melissa dump heavy and sustained rains on the parish.
Louis Porter, WPM’s senior public cleansing inspector for St James and Trelawny, spoke to that matter during a media briefing at the St James Municipal Corporation (StJMC) on Thursday, where stakeholders assigned to St James’ emergency operations centre discussed plans to deal with issues likely to emerge should the weather system impact the parish.
“We are currently working on communities that are in two weeks’ backlog or more. We are working on the dumpsite areas, and are mainly pooling our trucks to have those areas cleared out to prevent the heavy rain from washing the rubbish into the drains or into the sea,” said Porter.
“Currently, we have about 18 units operating today (Thursday) in St James, from all the zones including Hanover and Westmoreland, where we have pulled units from. We are trying our best, but we have to focus on the areas that are more flooded with backlogs of garbage,” said Porter, who did not give the total number of trucks involved with the exercise.
The update follows the StJMC’s latest monthly meeting on October 9, where the WPM reported that 57 communities in St James were in backlog for waste collection as at September, despite nine government-issued garbage trucks and three supplementary units being used to collect garbage during that month.
At that time, it was disclosed that three of the 11 new garbage trucks, which the NSWMA received for St James in 2024, were out for repairs, and that a minimum of 15 trucks would be needed for effective waste collection across the parish.
Porter told Thursday’s briefing that, up to that point, the WPM had its trucks operating on 12-hour shifts, with special focus on communities and sites in and around the Montego Bay area. He said this would continue after the passage of Melissa, which had been forecast to become a hurricane by Saturday and a major hurricane by the end of the weekend.
“We have about six to seven units around the city clearing backlog areas, including the Norwood skip sites, the dumpsites around the city, and the town centre areas including the lanes and the corners, to have all of these cleaned. We will continue that on a daily basis until the tropical storm arrives and also after it passes,” said Porter.
“We currently have a truck cleaning the Farm Heights area coming down. Hopefully, we can have a full shift team coming in on a 24-hour shift, up until the tropical storm and after,” Porter added. “We have a team coming in about 6 p.m. today (Thursday) to do another 12-hour shift ‘til Friday morning. We are in the different areas, trying as best as possible to see how efficiently and effectively we can clear these corners and dumpsites.”
Meanwhile, Montego Bay Mayor Richard Vernon told the briefing that funding has been made available for drain cleaning across the StJMC’s 17 divisions.
“The StJMC is a responsible local authority and, as such, we have mobilised funding to the respective divisions that we received from the Ministry of Local Government and Community Development, to deal with drain cleaning. The councillors have gone ahead to start the cleaning of drains, inlets, and outlets in their areas,” said Vernon.