THAT BEETHAM LANDFILL

Conflicting positions have been adopted by the Ministry of Public Utilities and the Solid Waste Management Company Limited (SWMCOL) on the issue of the Beetham landfill. SWMCOL’s chairman Ray Brathwaite advised a Joint Select Committee meeting on Wednesday that SWMCOL was initiating moves to implement security measures at the landfill to prevent persons from entering the area and salvaging the garbage.  On the other hand Permanent Secretary in the Public Utilities Ministry, Anthony Bartholomew, told the Committee that his Ministry would emphasise the teaching of Beetham residents to find sustainable employment in recycling waste rather than salvaging it.

Salvaging according to the Concise Oxford Dictionary means “saving and utilisation of waste paper, scrap metal etc.”, and is described in the Random House Word Menu as “repair and save from destruction.”  In turn, since the Concise Oxford Dictionary gives the meaning of  recycle as “convert waste to reusable material”, it is to be assumed that the Ministry of Public Utilities and SWMCOL are at opposite ends with respect to salvaging. This, particularly, as the Beetham Gardens residents or what have you will first have to salvage material from the landfill before it can be recycled. We wish to emphasise that there can be no quarrel with persons who live off the Beetham Highway being taught by the Public Utilities Ministry how to find sustainable employment.

The problem with salvaging from the Beetham landfill as part of any programme aimed at sustainable employment is that persons involved in that exercise all too often go beyond mere “saving and utilisation of waste paper, scrap metal etc.”, and collect condemned tinned foodstuff, among other things, the use of which has been determined by the Health authorities as potentially injurious to the health of the person[s] consuming it. Admittedly, several items of garbage taken from the dump, for example glass bottles, have found ready markets and have brought many rummaging at the landfill a regular source of income, without necessarily posing a threat to others.  But these are exceptions. In addition, the “landfill engineers” very often set large areas of the garbage dump on fire in order to more readily access many of the items they seek, once the flames are extinguished.

And while the end result may be profitable to them, at night time however, apart from polluting several areas in and off the landfill, the smoke can make it difficult and somewhat hazardous to drivers and passengers in vehicles travelling along the Beetham Highway. The idea of setting fire to the dump did not originate with today’s generation of garbage salvagers, but has been around, off and on, for as early as the first half of the last century and should be discouraged. Hopefully, the converting of the old Rum Bond, along the Eastern Main Road, Laventille, for use as a vocational skills training centre will encourage the young men and women to seek to acquire skills which would place them on the road to upward mobility rather than the somewhat dubious exercise of rummaging in the Beetham dump.