Garbage Collection Resumes, Fees Imminent

The Belize City Council and Belize Waste Control reached an agreement last Friday after several weeks of a stalemate that resulted in residential garbage accumulating across Belize City. When City Hall, which was in significant arrears to the sanitation company, was unable to pay its bill, garbage began piling up at every street corner and quickly became an eyesore, as well as a potential public health issue. After weeks of impasse and irregular garbage collection, Central Government stepped in to pay outstanding taxes it owes on properties it acquired in Belize City. Those monies have been used to defray CitCo’s bill, but, according to Mayor Bernard Wagner, it’s only a short-term solution.

Bernard Wagner

Bernard Wagner, Belize City Mayor

“It’s a temporary fix but at the end of the day, no one wants to see their city with the amount of garbage thrown all over the place. The residents, again, must be able to take responsibility. You have to be accountable for your garbage, it’s your garbage that you create. So at some point in time, while we are fixing it temporarily, the long-term solution has to be a garbage fee and we are aggressively pursuing that with the required legislative authority. If someone from the rural pays to get their garbage collected, people in poor villages pay to get their garbage collected, why are Belize City residents immune from this? It costs the city three million [dollars] a year for garbage. We are not looking for any sort of profiteering out of this, we are looking at a situation where it offsets the cost of collecting the garbage and collecting the garbage is just the first part, it’s the disposing of it. It’s finding other means of recycling, all of these things have to come to a head and I am glad to say that the local government has been supporting the city in getting the required amendment to the S.I. I believe it was in 2009, Zenaida Moya signed on to that which really put the city in a situation where Belize City was omitted from charging fees and that has to change. We are living in a modern world.”