SXMElections.com

Uncollected garbage on Front Street. Photo Today / Hilbert Haar

St. Maarten News – The messy situation with garbage collection got uglier yesterday after reports that All Waste in Place, the company responsible for collecting garbage in Philipsburg, has approached shopkeepers to sign individual contracts. Without these contracts, garbage will not be collected downtown.

Several shopkeepers have flat out refused to sign any contract with the garbage collector. Others, like real estate agent Leroy de Weever, disposed of their store garbage under their own steam. De Weever said that he knew of shopkeepers who would give the garbage collectors something like $100 a month to pick up their debris.

Nick Maley – That Yoda Guy – was particularly upset about the situation. “I don’t know how much money they want for these contracts because when they came here I was not even going there,” he said.

Maley wonders how the garbage collector wants to pick up debris from the stores during the day when the street is closed off for vehicular traffic. “It does not make sense to me,” he said.

On Monday there was a large pile of uncollected garbage in the secretaries Steeg, straight across from the Yoda Guy Star Wars Museum on Front Street. While this garbage appears to have been picked up after all, a new pile was forming at the same spot yesterday around lunchtime.

Elsewhere on Front Street there was also uncollected garbage piling up.

A spokesman for the Vromi-Ministry forwarded a question about the legality of forcing shopkeepers to sign individual contracts, but up to last night there was no answer.

In the meantime, MP Maurice Lake joined the debate with a press statement in which he supports the notion of Vromi-Minister angel Meyers that action needs to be taken.”

“I support the minister’s approach to bring in additional local helpers to pick up the garbage in all areas, especially in St. Peters,” Lake said. “Our communities should not suffer during this transition phase.”

Lake said that deploying extra help would create temporary employment, relieve communities from unsightly piles of garbage and prevent the development of rodent problems,

Lake also noted that the garbage collectors have to live up to their contracts. He encouraged citizens to report complaints to the Vromi-ministry at phone number 542 42 89.

Lake also had some advice for the garbage collection companies: provide the best service possible and put garbage bins back in the same place where they find them,

Lastly, Lake “assures” in his press statement “that the garbage will be picked up by the end of the week, starting today.”