RSG Outlaws Cart Refuse Collection Soon

The Rivers State Government says it plans to phase out the use of carts for the collection of solid waste in Port Harcourt and its environs.

Commissioner for Environment, Mr Kingsley Chinda, who disclosed this to newsmen at the Port Harcourt International Airport, Omagwa said that the state capital had passed the stage of using cart trucks to evacuate refuse.

According to him, the system has become outdated, pointing out that the business can only be allowed to flourish if the operators modernise their equipment.

He announced that government would soon embark on monthly collection of sanitation fees, just as house to house refuse collection would be resumed with vehicles.

Mr Chinda noted that the solid waste sector had been privatized and government would only play a supervisory role, saying that local governments in the state had been directed to set up environmental committees to facilitate the exercise at the grassroots.

The environment commissioner hinted that a meeting would soon be held with local government chairmen to inform them of what to do and the limit to which they would go about the sanitation of their areas.

Shedie Okpara