Seeking Solutions to Illegal Dumping:
Education, Citation, Action by Kayode Crown
March 3 - 30, 2021 • jfp.ms
The City of Jackson put a sign on West Highland Drive saying those who throw trash beside the street will a $1,000 fine. But it seems not to be working.
council meeting. “As soon as we organize cleanups to pick it up, it’s back out there (in) three or four days.” Solid Waste Management Manager Lakesha Weathers told the city council that apart from battling with incessant dumping, only one city trash truck is operational, with only one driver. (Contractor Waste Management has its own trucks for home waste pickup.) She disclosed this after Ward 5 Councilman Charles Tillman, council vice president, wondered aloud why he never sees City of Jackson trash trucks in his area to deal with dumping though “we purchased, at one time, three trash trucks.” “We have one operational; we have one operator, that’s all we have currently,” Weathers said. “We did at one time have four; we’re down to two.” She said one of the two went to the repair shop on Feb. 1 and that increasing the number of available trucks from two to three will cost thousands of dollars based on quotes she received to repair the third truck. Tillman said the mayoral administration needs to purchase or lease more trucks to pick up the items illegally dumped. “It is debris everywhere, (and) we got to pick it up. Nobody’s going to pick it up,” he said. “That’s one of the major issues—all this trash and dumping.” “My trucks run all day, every day, so
we are picking it up. We’re picking it up (on) request, as we see it, as our inspectors see it, we collect it, but unfortunately the residents or outside residents, by our assumption, are coming back and dumping again,” Weathers said after she agreed with Tillman’s assessment that the problem is significantly affecting the city. Weathers suggested the need for an informational drive to change peoples’ courtesy Chris Carr
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More Trucks or More Information? Council President and Ward 6 Councilman Aaron Banks shares the same view. “(Illegal dumping) poses a big problem in the city of Jackson,” Councilman Banks acknowledged at the Feb. 2
Kayode Crown
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ackson’s DJ Finesse took to Facebook on Feb. 8 to complain about the illegal dumping behind his office on West Capitol Street. The popular 99 Jams DJ—his birth name is Chris Carr—did not hold back his language in rebuking the perpetrators in the post that got more than 100 reactions. The items he complained about included pieces of furniture, clothes and cardboard. “To you sorry MF who too lazy and cheap to go spend $40 at the city dump and decides to dump on Capitol Street, I hope your transmission goes out,” he wrote in apparent anger. “Now we have to clean up behind you...Just know to smile next time because I gotcha on all 16 cameras. SMH...Tag # and all….” This reporter paid visits to the office and personally saw and took photographs of the trash dumped behind his office. Carr was not in the office during those visits and did not return calls or texts the Jackson Free Press sent for further comments. Angelique Lee is only a few weeks into her time as Ward 2 Jackson City Councilwoman, and she and other volunteers have already embarked on four waste-disposal exercises, she told the Jackson Free Press. However, days before the most recent cleanup event in her ward on Feb. 6, she was already worried that it would be in vain. Lee asked Public Works Director Charles Williams at the council meeting on Feb. 2 to provide fencing around a portion of the place where the cleanup was set to happen. “We’re worried that after we clean up, they’ll still continue to come in and dump,” she said. “Is there any way that we can try to partition that area off?” She referred to the “100 Black Men area where a bridge is closed off, and people started using it as a dumping ground.” The councilwoman is not the only one worried if her efforts will go to waste with the continued practice of illegal dumping..
Jackson-based DJ Finesse (Chris Carr) went on Facebook on Feb. 8 to complain of trash illegally dumped behind his office on West Capitol
behavior because, she said, “It’s not the problem with picking it up, it’s keeping it off the ground.” Some people do not know the options available for debris disposal in the city, Weathers said, adding that she is working on an information campaign. She did not indicate when this will happen but believes that it will serve better than increasing the available trucks. “I have been in talks with some council members about how we can develop a campaign moving forward to educate the public on how not to litter their city,” Weather said. Banks, however, said that it is not enough to educate, because some people who know what to do, don’t. “Education is one thing, but I think we have a problem with contractors that are doing work, residential work, mechanics that are doing work, getting tires, getting roof shingles, getting all that stuff and going on some lonely road, like Lakeshore, Forest Hill roads, in the middle of the night and dumping it instead of being responsible,” he alleged. Cameras and Crimes Councilman Tillman suggested to Weathers that police could use cameras around the city to ascertain who is doing the dumping. She responded that she does not believe law enforcement is checking the cameras for offenders who are trashing the city. “I think that (the Jackson Police Department is) more focused on the crime and not the illegal dumping,” she responded. “Now, illegal dumping is a crime, but I think that they’re more focused on the violent crimes outside of people disposing of things illegally.” Banks said, and Tillman agreed, that there is a need to set a standard of toughness on the crime of illegal dumping. Ward 4 Councilman and Mississippi District 66 Rep. De’Keither Stamps asked how many have been cited for illegal dumping in the city. “We see all these illegal dumping, we don’t see a lot of the tickets being issued,” he said. “I don’t want to go into too much detail, but it has been requested (from Jackson Police Department), and (they) simply stated that they cannot write tickets. What do you want us to do? How do you want us
