[www.inewsguyana.com] – Some 50,000 pounds of excess garbage was dumped at the Haags Bosch landfill site aback Eccles, East Bank Demerara in 2013.
According to Junior Local Government and Regional Development Minister Norman Whittaker this is testimony to the improvements the site has undergone during the year.
According to him, the site took-in a total of 100,000 tonnes of garbage for the year. The Inter – American Development Bank funded project is still undergoing construction by BK International, an area in which the Minister said challenges continue to befall.
The waste disposal project is behind schedule. When it began in February, 2007, Haags Bosch was scheduled to be completed by August 13, 2013.
Whittaker assured that the excess garbage does not signal the immediate need for a new site and that there was enough land space available.
He said what it indicates is that the construction of cell one needs to ‘speed up’. “There is adequate land space we and shouldn’t be immediately bothered with that though a new site will not be inescapable in the future.”
The Haags Bosch landfill site’s cell one is currently being used though it is still a work in progress. That work on the cell will cease only when it no longer has the capacity to accommodate more waste.
There have been several concerns raised about the project among which is that another site will soon be needed with public proposals of constructing one along the East Coast of Demerara.
Others have said that the Haags Bosch site will not last its stipulated lifespan because of this excess dumping of garbage.
Earlier in December Head of the Georgetown Solid Waste Management Team Gordon Gilkes had said that despite being designed to receive 6,000 tonnes of solid waste per month, the Landfill is currently processing more than 10,000 tonnes per month.
He had said then that “We are, at the moment, at about 60% of Cell one… it should be remembered that the operations of the HBSL were started prematurely, because of the situation at Le Repentir. The thing is that the operation and construction is being done at the same time.”
