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Benschop blocks entrance in protest
The traffic confusion at the Le Repentir after the garbage trucks was blocked from entering the dumpsite.
Social Activist Mark Benschop blocked the entrance to the Le Repentir dumpsite with his vehicle, stopping garbage trucks and other vehicles from gaining access to dump their refuse in the area yesterday.
At the scene, vehicles lined the street since the blocked passageway caused many of the garbage trucks to remain on the road and in the process obstructed the heavy flow of traffic. However, after hours of protest City Council officials and members of the police force persuaded Benschop to remove from the entrance of dumpsite, since he had already made a clear statement about what prompted his actions of protest.
According to Benchop, residents in the Le Penitence area are suffering from the stench that emanates from the dumpsite. “I have taken the decision to block these trucks from entering, because apart from a health hazard people can’t bury their dead without going through the stench. Somebody has to take a position and the politicians aren’t doing it. The opposition, the Government do you think anyone of them will live around here?”
He explained that his decision to stop the trucks emanated from helping the residents who are supportive of his stance. The times are modern and to have a dumpsite at the center of a community is wrong and illogical, he added.
Adding that many persons are sitting in parliament that represents the community, Benschop said that the billions of dollars that are being wasted can be invested in an incinerator so that the garbage is disposed of properly. While at present residents’ health are being exposed to a serious risk that will damage their overall well being.
An official from the Mayor and City recently disclosed that all evidence suggests that the dumpsite is already being flooded with additional waste from the East Bank and East Coast Demerara, and from the West Bank and West Coast Demerara.
It was also said that the dumpsite ought to have been closed years ago but is still open through no fault of the Mayor and City Council of Georgetown.
Director of Solid Waste Management, Hubert Urlin, said that during the Christmas period there is usually a 20 to 25 percent increase in the quantity of waste received, over and above the annual average. He disclosed that measures were put in place to increase the number of equipment available at the site in terms of bulldozers to be able to push the waste for a couple of hundred feet in order to have it reasonably accommodated at the site. However work in this regard, Urlin said, remains a challenge.
According to Mayor Green, the municipality has over the past few weeks been doing all within its financial and other capabilities to maintain the dumpsite, which is currently in a precarious state.
Green revealed, too, that efforts were made to seek the cooperation of Minister of Local Government and Regional Development, Kellawan Lall, under whose purview the municipality falls.
He disclosed that at a recent meeting held at the instance of the Minister, following the last fire that had erupted at the dumpsite, the challenges of maintaining the dumpsite were highlighted.
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