Scavengers blast Beetham dump closure

“It is a time bomb! It will have destruction and high crime in the country. Many of us (scavengers) live off of the Labasse,” Greg Jones, a scavenger said while waiting for the garbage disposal trucks to enter the landfill yesterday.

He and several others are upset over Environment Min-ister Pennelope Beckles’ announcement at a post-Cabinet meeting, on Thursday, that the landfill will be closed after 30 years of operation.

The Beetham dump has served as a catchment from Chaguaramas to Curepe but it will be replaced by a new cost-effective waste disposal facility, Beckles had said.

But scavengers are predicting job losses and despair for their families.

“We and the Government cannot agree. Our families depend on this place for a living.! The Government will create idle hands.

“Tell (Prime Minister Patrick) Manning he will have to go back to Cuba to get a new heart,” Jones said.

Mervyn Pompey, who hustles at the landfill for a living, said he did not agree with the Government’s decision to move the site.

“My children are getting an education, and they will not cross this Beetham, or make a jail,” Pompey said.

Pompey, who lives at Phase Two, Beetham Gardens, said his parents also raised him by hustling goods from the landfill.

The scavengers said an estimated 2,000 people make a daily living from the landfill.

Spiritual Baptist elder Reverend Abbess Elise Homer, who has resided at Beetham Gardens for the past 29 years, agreed with the scavengers.

“Many people make a living on the Beetham. I have eaten the biggest turkey and ham, and survived off of the goods from the Beetham dump,” Homer said.

However, Roy Joseph, a passer-by, said it was a good idea to remove the dump because of the pollution.