KKMP radio personality Gary Sword will chair the CNMI Universal Garbage Collection Task Force.
Gov. Ralph DLG Torres on Friday said the task force will consist of the Department of Public Works, the Bureau of Environmental and Coastal Quality, the Commonwealth Utilities Corp. and the Office of Planning and Development.
Additional government agencies will be included from time to time as deemed necessary by the task force chairman, he added.
The governor has also invited the Governor’s Council of Economic Advisers, the Saipan Chamber of Commerce, the Hotel Association of the NMI and the Office of the Attorney General.
The task force will likewise include representatives from the Rota and Tinian mayors’ offices as well as community members with “strong backgrounds” in garbage collection.
The governor signed Executive Order 2021-21 to create the task force as proposed by the Governor’s Council of Economic Advisers earlier this year.
GCEA has proposed a regular curbside pickup schedule and the installation of trash receptacles in open spaces.
According to the governor’s executive order creating the CNMI Universal Garbage Collection Task Force, it “shall work toward the creation of a collection system that will provide for greater efficiencies in the collection of solid waste among the villages and businesses in the Commonwealth, reduce the incentives for littering, provide for community receptacles, and establish greater efficiencies among private operators in the solid waste collection services.”
The CNMI has an anti-littering law that was enacted in 1989 and amended in 2016 because the law’s enforcement had been “minimal and sporadic.”
Gary Sword
