Jan 28, 2012 – Share A Drink With A Fly
QUESTION:
If an outdoor bar has an issue with flies is it a good idea to have garbage bins inside the bars?
ANSWER:
Since you are in the Caribbean I can see that outdoor bars and eating are going to be common. And, of course, flies will be attracted to odors coming from these settings. The issue comes down to this in an effort to prevent fly problems. Either you make the area unavailable to the flies, which in an outdoor bar is probably impossible, or you remove the attraction, which might be something to work on. A problem is human nature, and bars can be pretty busy places where the folks who work behind that counter need to move quickly and have no obstacles to what has to be done, meaning trash cans are most likely going to be left open on top so empty bottles and other junk can be tossed right in. Changing this is probably impossible. It would be helpful if those garbage bins had tight-fitting lids on them and plastic bags inside that were disposed of each time the bin got full, but again that human nature thing.
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If an outdoor bar has an issue with flies is it a good idea to have garbage bins inside the bars?
ANSWER:
Since you are in the Caribbean I can see that outdoor bars and eating are going to be common. And, of course, flies will be attracted to odors coming from these settings. The issue comes down to this in an effort to prevent fly problems. Either you make the area unavailable to the flies, which in an outdoor bar is probably impossible, or you remove the attraction, which might be something to work on. A problem is human nature, and bars can be pretty busy places where the folks who work behind that counter need to move quickly and have no obstacles to what has to be done, meaning trash cans are most likely going to be left open on top so empty bottles and other junk can be tossed right in. Changing this is probably impossible. It would be helpful if those garbage bins had tight-fitting lids on them and plastic bags inside that were disposed of each time the bin got full, but again that human nature thing.
I don't know how big these bins are that you are dealing with, but if they are really designed to be the outdoor bins then that is where they should be - outside and away from the areas of food service and human activity. Smaller bins on the inside may need to be emptied more often than a big one that holds a whole evening's garbage, but that convenience needs to be balanced with the possibility that flies are going to end up in someone's drink or all over their food simply because they are present in larger numbers due to the attraction of the garbage. Convenience should not supersede health. Ideally I suppose all garbage receptacles should be away from the service areas, but this is not really practical for the people who work there and need to toss waste materials into something quickly so they can move on with the next thing to do.
Work with this customer to evaluate their waste stream, and see if they currently are practicing good sanitation with the garbage receptacles. They should probably have plastic bags in them that can then be sealed when taken to a larger dumpster outside somewhere, and definitely washed to remove residues of sweet liquids that invariably land on the outside and surrounding area. The garbage bins probably are not the only reason that flies are in this area, but if they are part of the problem then correcting it as much as possible at least reduces the fly population. The use of a few UV light traps placed where they will be seen quickly by approaching flies could help a bit too, along with fly baits applied to exterior areas where there also are flies and other attractions.
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