Illegal dumps in northern Trelawny threaten rodent control gains, health chief warns

Public health officials are flagging illegal dump sites across northern Trelawny, including Daniel Town and Shawfield, warning the piles could reverse gains from recent rodent-control work.

Dr Diane Dale, medical officer of the Trelawny Health Department, said the practice is not limited to Trelawny or those districts. Illegal dumping, she said, has grown over the years and remains a public health problem in most, if not all, Jamaican parishes.

Several factors drive it, Dale explained. Some households and businesses fail to store and dispose of refuse properly and instead leave it along roadways. Infrequent collection also pushes people toward what she called “migrating the garbage” — carrying waste away from home and discarding it along routes. Once an open dump appears, others add to it.

Dale rejected the idea that Daniel Town or Shawfield are uniquely worse. Northern Trelawny is more densely settled, she said, so more people and commerce mean more waste and more roadside dumping wherever reporters happen to notice it.

Unmanaged solid waste, she warned, creates conditions for rats, mice, flies, cockroaches and mosquitoes. Near homes and workplaces, rain-filled containers at dumps can breed Aedes aegypti, which spreads dengue. Food waste offers rodents shelter and a food supply, raising leptospirosis risk. She recalled an uptick in leptospirosis observations after Hurricane Melissa.

The health department’s post-hurricane response was rodent control, not eradication, Dale stressed. Crews removed bulky waste from several communities — more than 60 truckloads — then carried out serial baiting where rat and mouse sightings were highest. The work was costly and has no recurrent budget for regular repeats, she said, so how well communities keep the environment clean after that cleanup will decide how far rodent numbers stay down.

Public health education on solid waste is continuous across Trelawny, she added, delivered by community health workers, public health inspectors, vector-control staff, community health aides and health promotion officers in clinics, homes, workplaces and businesses. Advice includes proper storage of refuse while awaiting collection — a duty for householders and operators alike.

Dale said field staff also work routinely with National Solid Waste Management Authority cleansing inspectors, and major drives are run jointly, including with NSWMA’s public relations team.