JACKSON, Miss.—With no garbage pickup at John Benedict’s home in Mississippi’s capital city since the beginning of the month, the 19-year-old plans to burn it all up in a barrel behind his house, he told the Mississippi Free Press Wednesday morning.
“I’m fixing to make a pallet, set it on fire in my barrel in the backyard, and light everything up,” he said.
The City of Jackson is now facing the possibility of up to $75,000 in fines from the State because residents have had to go without garbage pickup services since April 1, after the Jackson City Council rejected Mayor Chokwe A. Lumumba’s proposed six-year contract with Richard’s Disposal.
The mayor pulled the same contract at a council meeting Monday, saying the city attorney advised him not to take it up again since the company is suing the City for the contract rejection.
MDEQ: City’s Plan ‘Inadequate’
As the impasse between the mayor and the City Council continued on April 5, the City presented a temporary plan to put four 40-yard dumpsters at the Metrocenter Mall parking lot from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Thursdays and Fridays along with seven to nine 40-yard dumpsters at the mall from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Saturdays.
But those measures are not enough, the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality said in an April 7 letter to the mayor.
The temporary measures the City of Jackson put in place for garbage disposal are inadequate, Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality Chris Wells said in an April 7, 2023, letter. Photo courtesy Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality.
“Based on the limited number of drop-off locations and the distance of the drop-off locations from affected City residents, MDEQ considers the current Solid Waste Collection Action Plan inadequate for the collection and disposal of garbage from city residents,” MDEQ Executive Director Chris Wells wrote in the letter. “Furthermore, on Friday, April 7, 2023, MDEQ personnel conducted visual observations of neighborhoods within all seven wards of the City of Jackson.”
“These observations revealed that garbage and other solid waste has been dumped, stored, stockpiled, and otherwise