THE GOVERNMENT SHOULD NOT ALLOW A SOLID WASTE TRANSFER STATION IN THE CITY

Jan 08, 2013 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

Georgetown is a small city. It may loom large in some person’s estimation but relatively speaking, Georgetown is a puny municipality.
The argument that such a small geographic space needs a solid waste transfer station is unconvincing. If there is a problem with the opening and the turnaround time for refuse trucks at the landfill site at Eccles, this needs to be addressed but to use the problems of disposing garbage at the landfill as the pretext for having a waste transfer site in the city, given what was experienced with the landfill at Le Repentir cemetery, should be rejected.
There is no need for anymore garbage to be stored in the city. Eccles is a few miles out of Georgetown and if the city’s garbage cannot be efficiently disposed of at this facility, then that issue has to be addressed. To have another eyesore, to endanger the lives of the citizens with another storage dump in the city, will not pass muster and should not be entertained.
It is hoped that this idea of a transfer station is not being used to become the basis for private companies being allotted land which is under the management of City Hall.
Municipalities do not own lands. Local authorities may manage lands, but all lands belong to the State, and the government should make it clear that all State lands and reserves should be kept free, including being free of being used as a storage transfer facility, another way of saying a temporary dumping ground.
Once garbage is collected it should be dumped. The government should not allow any transfer facility in the city, because this means the same garbage has to be collected twice and the need for such facilities can become the pretext for deals between the Council and private businesses.
City Hall is not a corporation. Our local government system has not yet so evolved and will perhaps never so evolve, because municipalities are likely to remain too small to be converted into public corporations.
Since City Hall is not a corporation, it does not enjoy autonomy in terms of land use. The usage of land in the city has to conform to the directives of the local government ministry.
It is heartening, therefore, that the government has taken firm steps to stamp out the unauthorized leasing out of State land and has also passed laws to ensure that prescriptive rights can no longer be claimed for State land.
If the City Council has a proposal which it supports, and if this proposal concerns the use State property by private companies, it should obtain clearance from the government before entering into any arrangement.
And the government should be extremely cautious about granting any permission for more dumpsites – temporary or otherwise – in the city. There are environmental concerns involved in creating such dumpsites and therefore even before the matter is referred for approval to the government, City Hall has to ensure that an environmental permit has been granted by the Environmental Protection Agency, be it for a garbage transfer station or for a crematorium.
Those are things which have public health concerns and should ideally not be located in an area close to residences. In fact, it is time that a policy is developed in relation to industrial concerns near to residential areas.
It was shocking to have witnessed a few days ago, a GPL boiler belching smoke through its chimney at the Kingston Plant. That plant is located not far away from where an international hotel is to be located. What will the guests think of Guyana when they see a major industrial facility being located just up the road from where they are staying?
But worst of all is that there are residential properties just across the road from the power station. Imagine the impact over the years of those emissions on the health of nearby residents.
Guyana has to move away from such practices. You cannot have things like crematoriums, landfills, solid waste storage stations and factories in close proximity to residences. Those things should not be happening, and is all the more reason why before the government sanctions any solid waste transfer station or crematorium in the city, a thorough environmental impact assessment must be undertaken.

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THE GOVERNMENT SHOULD NOT ALLOW A SOLID WASTE TRANSFER STATION IN THE CITY

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