Garbage piles disturb Lindeners

Dec 01, 2011 News

Indiscriminate garbage dumping by anyone is generally viewed as totally irresponsible and disgusting. It reflects the characteristics of the least cultured amongst us.
But then there are those who are tasked with keeping the environment clean and healthy, but instead are even guiltier than the common populace, when it comes to indiscriminate garbage disposal.
Concerned residents of Linden have condemned this most despicable practice of the sanitation arm of the Linden Municipality, who instead of disposing of refuse safely, have persisted in indiscriminate dumping.
One of the present sites for this unhealthy practice is the area just beyond West Watooka, alongside the thoroughfare to the Lucky Spot Mines.
Persons who are forced to use this thoroughfare have expressed their disgust over this state of affairs, as the garbage is now littering the shoulders of the road. Young people are in the habit of breaking bottles and strewing them along the roadway.
A motorist who is forced to use the roadway daily, said, “At first they used to throw the garbage on the other side- by the Blue Lake, now they throwing the stuff on this side. People are now going through the garbage, and breaking the bottles on the road. You know how many tyres I lose on this road due to these broken bottles?
“And now this morning lo and behold they block the road with tyres and tree trunks; well is what they gon do next? These youths instead of being in school they’re out here making mischief. But then if there was no garbage here, there would be nothing to cause them to come out to this location. I think the higher authorities should look seriously into this situation.
Particularly troubling is the fact that school aged children, some as young as seven or eight years, have made the garbage heaps their ‘hunting ground’ and could be seen rummaging through the stinking piles regularly.
Only yesterday three boys were observed scavenging in the debris. Two of them on seeing an approaching vehicle ran into the thick vegetation nearby and disappeared.
The youngest- who looked about seven or eight continued sitting right where he was, and hung his head in apparent shame.
He was flanked by the cover of a toilet bowl and other paraphernalia. From the piles of garbage surrounding him, it was impossible to tell how he had reached where he was sitting.
“This thing is a terrible health hazard, because it’s a breeding ground for flies. When the rain falls, the effluent washes straight into the river, in an area which is very close to the GWI water facility at West Watooka–so all of that water gets sucked up by the pump, and that is what is pumped into our homes as potable water.
“I think this is a serious situation, because we are not certain that the current treatment of the water by GWI removes all the impurities and bacteria.
“I think the Town Council should definitely remove this dumpsite from here, because I traverse here daily, and you could always see children here scavenging in the heaps, if this is not done I think we could have a serious outbreak of some epidemic or other,” a concerned resident of West Watooka pointed out.

3 thoughts on “Garbage piles disturb Lindeners”

denamstel December 1, 2011 at 3:38 am

Why don’t the town council organize some volunteers , get together and clean-up their area rather than waiting the garbage people to do their clean-up for them. After all, they live there.
RaAmen December 1, 2011 at 1:10 pm

This is sickening.
Fireman649 December 1, 2011 at 2:32 pm

From the photographs the situation appears to be out of control to the point where the only wise thing to do is to bring out a fire tender and do a control burn of the garbage.