Garbage collection goes high-tech as NSWMA pushes for greater accountability

WESTERN BUREAU:

Leona Bennett, a senior public cleansing inspector at the National Solid Waste Management Authority’s (NSWMA) Western Parks and Markets Limited (WPM), who has special responsibility for Westmoreland, says technology will be used to monitor the units doing garbage collection in parish, to ensure the public is properly served.

Speaking at the recent monthly meeting of the Westmoreland Municipal Corporation (WMC), Bennett said that, by using the designated technology, the WPM can now accurately account for the times its disposal trucks visit communities and collect solid waste using smartphones and tracking devices.

“We have installed tracking devices so that we can know exactly where our trucks are, how long the crew stayed there, and if they go where they are dispatched,” Bennett told the councillors at the WMC.

“They (the sanitation crew) have smart telephones, and they are required to upload time-stamped photos with GPS coordinates. So, if I am in Negril Town centre, and I take a picture there and set the coordinates, it tells me the time that I am there and what the town centre looks like at that time,” added Bennett.

Speaking with The Gleaner after the WMC meeting, Audley Gordon, executive director at the NSWMA, said this initiative was implemented nationally one month ago and is currently generating good results as the NSWMA is now better able manage its assets and resources.

“We have over 100 trucks, so it is imperative that, as part of our controlling the movement of the fleet and managing, we embrace the use of technology to ensure that we have the trucks doing what we sent them out there to do, and that there is no undue idling taking place,” Gordon said.

“While we have excellent crews, where we have trained and equipped them with best practices, we still believe that we have to use the available technologies that are out there to assist us to give the taxpayer the value for money that they deserve,” continued Gordon.

“They are spending a lot to ensure that their garbage is being collected, and we want the maximum returns. So we have employed some technical assistance, and it is reaping some benefits and helping us to monitor what is out there.”

Gordon said that, while the NSWMA is still analysing the impact of the use of the technology in garbage collection, just from mere observation, what is being seen is quite promising.

“We are still doing the analysis but what I can tell you now is that gone are the days when an employee could tell us that an area was clean and it wasn’t. When they send the time-stamped photographs now, we look at the date and time; we can see what has taken place in those spaces, and we can also know the movement of the trucks,” said Gordon.

“The addition of technology has helped us to be more precise, and we can now speak more definitively because we have an evidence-based backup to what is coming to us from the various operators in the field,” continued Gordon.

“In a very short time from now, we will compile a more substantial response on the benefit, but, right now I can tell you that the early signs of the technology intervention are very good, especially the fact that we are in the know; we are no longer solely relying on the words of humans,” added Gordon.

Albert Ferguson