Managing waste disposal; restoring the Garden in the Garbage city

Dec 19, 2010 News

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By Michael Benjamin

Guyanese are naturally gifted people. They devise all kinds of ingenious ways to solve problems; using their quota of lemons to make lemonade.
Just the other day I witnessed Guyanese ingenuity in action during the strike by Cevon’s Waste Management. The latter group claimed that it was contracted by the M&CC to collect solid waste and deposit it in the designated Mandela Dumpsite.
Cevon’s Waste Management further contended that the M&CC failed to liquidate millions of dollars owed for services rendered. Efforts by the former group to recoup the outstanding sum from the latter proved futile as the M&CC adamantly maintained that it had no money in its coffers.
Cevon’s Waste Management then rescinded its services saying that it would only resume after a substantial amount of the owed sum has been liquidated. The move resulted in huge piles of garbage around the Garden City.
The strike witnessed the mushrooming of young entrepreneurs who used handcarts, donkey carts, Bedford trucks and other modes of transportation to provide waste disposal services to hapless residents who had to fork out eight hundred dollars to empty each receptacle.
Some householders resignedly paid while others devised unorthodox and in some cases unhealthy ways of disposal. It was not long before the Garden City became transformed into the Garbage City.
It was here that Guyanese ingenuity took precedence.  A certain resident refused to pay to have his trash taken out while claiming that he had already paid his rates and taxes and therefore should not be otherwise burdened. He cunningly devised a way to have his garbage removed from his residence free of cost.
How did he manage to get rid of his trash? He simply gift wrapped it and placed it into an unlocked car. The next day the trunkers had obliged him. It is now time to apply a similar brand of ingenuity to rid residents of North East LaPenitence, Princes Street and certain sections of Tucville and Meadow Brook from the alarming state of affairs emanating from the Mandela Dumpsite, strategically placed in the heart of the Garden City.
City officials have developed a penchant for solid waste disposal in the most unlikely of places. I cannot forget years ago when they chose the playfield aback of the North Ruimveldt Multilateral School and converted it into a dumpsite. The rationale, then, was that the land was very low and needed to be built up.
City officials had given a commitment that after the dumping operations had abated the field would be refurbished and given back to the school, better suited for running, playing and indulging in sports activities. That was more than two decades ago.
The field is now transformed into a jungle in the heart of Georgetown; the promise of a modernised facility is now the only foul smell emanating from the site.
Elected officials of the government as well as those from the Mayor and City Council are deemed intelligent; competent for the job. Why else would the electorate place them in such important positions?
It seems woefully obvious that these officials are either not up to the task or are willfully engaged in a game of some sort to pollute this nation and more particularly, those in close proximity to the dumpsite.
I remember a few years ago, during a heated debate on whether the Bourda Cemetery should be converted into a shopping mall, the view was debunked by a wide cross section of society. The argument was that the dead is consecrated and should not be treated so disdainfully took precedence, and eventually won over all other arguments.
To this day that cemetery remains in the middle of Georgetown even though the general view seems to be that it has outlived its usefulness and should be scrapped in the name of modernization.
I could not help but wonder where these officials were when the decision to cover a large number of tombs with solid waste was taken. Where were the environmentalists that are now belching out their rhetoric of a green Guyana?
Take a walk in the cemetery on any given day and observe the human vultures that are collecting expired and discarded foodstuff and empty glass bottles among other items for recyclable purposes.
I recently was in the burial ground to have a first hand look at the kinds of activity there and was amazed at what I saw. The Carib Beer bottles are not redeemable at the Ansa McAl Company but are used by manufacturers in the cottage industry to bottle certain condiments.
These bottles are collected at the dumpsite and they wend their way into these manufacturing establishments and then onto the breakfast and dinner tables of unsuspecting consumers. Where are the relevant institutions that are mandated to curtail such lawlessness?
Not so long ago I attempted to beautify my parapet with a little stump fence and some flowers. Less than three hours after I had erected the structure a team of city officials descended on my residence and ordered me to dismantle it.
Before that incident I could not remember when last I had seen any constabulary officer in my area conducting and such exercise.
I have a clear view of the atrocious Mandela Dumpsite from my front gate. Ironically, none of the officers that visited my premises saw the need to inform their superiors of the smelly dump and unsightly surroundings.
There is always a paucity of manpower to attend to these issues yet when it comes to little piffles like my stump fence a vanload of officials was dispatched to take care of business.
In June of every year Government officials and Trade unionists gather at the site where the Enmore martyrs are interred to pay homage to this lot of heroes. It is virtually impossible to get to this site and not be aware of the unsightly mound of garbage and the putrid odour emanating from the area.
Yet these suit clad officials fail to see the urgency of attending to this horrifying situation.
I guess these goodly gentlemen, because they are only required to pay an itinerant visit to the area once every year, fail to see the urgency in correcting this anomaly.
In the meantime citizens of the surrounding areas are undergoing severe respiratory problems that could possibly be life threatening.
It was commendable that social activist, Mark Benschop, could have seen a need to show his repugnance for the status quo. Yes, one would have felt that the communities around the area should have lent support to the cause. To remain quiet is affirmatively silly.
The time has now come for every citizen, irrespective of whether they occupy space near to the dumpsite or are one thousand miles away, to sound their voices at the total disrespect demonstrated by the officials elected to serve our best interest.
It is now time to rubbish, if you will pardon the pun, the idea of a major dump site in the center of the GARBAGE CITY. I wonder whey de man wid de hammer gone!

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