City Hall aims to be self-sufficient in garbage disposal

Dec 21, 2011 News

Plans to become fully self-sufficient at garbage disposal may have to be fast-tracked

The Haags Bosch Landfill site

by the Mayor and City Councillors of Georgetown, in light of the recent disruption of the relevant flow in the South Georgetown area.
This view was emphasized by Public Relations Officer, Royston King, during an interview with this publication.
The garbage disposal service in several communities, including areas in North and South Ruimveldt, East La Penitence and Tucville, were recently affected as a result of the unavailability of trucks operated by private waste disposal contractor Cevon’s Waste Management. This resulted in garbage not being picked up in the South Georgetown areas over the last three weeks.
According to King, reports from the contracted firm indicate that some of its trucks are under repairs, a situation which resulted in the municipality having to use its own trucks and manpower to work in the area to bring relief to the affected residents.
Prior to this dilemma, the municipality had been collecting garbage in some areas such as Cummingsburg. This was possible, King said, after the municipality was able to procure four garbage trucks, and a fifth, which was donated to the municipality by Central Government.
The fleet of five trucks, according to King, was being used to collect from both North and South Cummingsburg, but the efforts were supported by private contractors – Puran Brothers’ Disposal Service and Cevon’s Waste Management.
Catering to the entire Cummingsburg area was in fact a strategic move on the part of the municipality, King explained, to incrementally reclaim the responsibility of garbage collection in various parts of the city.
“While this was intended to be a pilot arrangement, it was also aimed at getting us to that state of collecting our own garbage throughout the city.”
However, the Public Relations Officer admitted that while the maintenance of the municipal trucks is possible to some extent, despite the municipal financial constraints, it certainly is not “as much as we desired but we hope to get there with the opportunity to raise more money or to raise more revenue. We hope to get there where we will have the supportive systems and facilities in place to maintain these trucks and to help us with our solid waste management”.
For this reason, King disclosed, the municipality is yet forced to retain the service of private contractors, even as he stated that there is no likelihood that the contractors will withdraw their services from the city at this point.
“We have been paying them all along and whatever we owe them is not an amount that would cause them to withdraw their service.”
King noted, nevertheless, that the contractors will continue to be burdened by the distance of the Haags Bosch site, which was introduced as an alternative to the Le Repentir dumpsite. At the moment, the latter site is being closed by Puran Brothers Waste Disposal Service and according to King “we are making sure that they are following the standards to properly cap the sides of the facility. We have people from our Solid Waste Department who are checking from time to time to ensure that they are doing the right thing.”
But although the relocation of the landfill site to Haags Bosch was a welcomed move, King said that it is sorely affecting the manner in which contractors operate. He explained that in addition to the distance, the operation timing of the site has proven to be a major inconvenience to contractors and citizens alike.
“When they would have been able to collect garbage in a day, because of the extra distance they have to do it in maybe two days or three days, and that is disrupting the flow of collection,” King insisted.