Faced with a growing garbage disposal problem in several parts of the country, the Government is moving to update and operationalize both the Environmental Protection Act and the Summary Jurisdiction Offences Act, to include jail time and community service for littering, Attorney General, Anil Nandlall has announced.

On his weekly “Issues in the News” programme, Mr. Nandlall said the 2013 Environmental Protection Act, has a number of regulations that were never operationalized.

Those regulations, he explained, set out a detailed regime dealing with littering and creating offences in the relation to littering, as well as stablishing an enforcement framework that is comprehensive.

He noted that the Government will now be bringing some of those provisions into force that provide a range of measures that are already in the law.  

“So, it is with littering in public place, littering in relation to motor vehicle and it speaks to a system of fines, it deals with littering from a motor vehicle in motion, it speaks about owners of public transportation to provide receptacles for litter and it creates a series of offences for persons littering on public and private premises. Significantly, it imposes upon the local authorities, a series of responsibilities and power to enforce laws and regulations in relation to littering,” Mr. Nandlall explained.

Mr. Nandlall said the framework will be comprehensively reviewed, updated and implemented.

“We will also review the summary Jurisdiction Offences Act and amend that legislation to expand the scope in relation to littering and to put new offences in place to increase the penalties and importantly to add imprisoned for repeated offenders as well as ad community service which will include cleaning garbage,” Mr. Nandlall noted.

In the same Environmental Protection Act, the Attorney General noted that there are a set of regulations that deal with noise pollution that were never enforced.

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