By Edmund Smith-Asante
It
is a hive of activities at the Nsumia landfill site, a spectacle of tonnes of
garbage which interestingly does not emit that putrid smell associated with
heaps of rubbish.
A compactor is busy spreading and levelling up the mountains of rubbish, while truckloads leave a lot of dust in their trail as they arrive with more solid waste and discharge them onto the already mountainous pile of waste.
At one side, scavengers are busy collecting materials such as plastics and metal, which they deem important to their cause. Meanwhile, some Cattle Egrets are busy feeding on the rubbish heap and flutter away as the scavengers and trucks approach, only to return and settle on the landfill site.
But
all activities at the site, in the Nsawam Adoagyiri Constituency in the Eastern
Region, would cease in about 15 months, when the landfill would not be able to
take anymore waste and would, therefore, be decommissioned, says the site
manager of the landfill, Mr Samuel Quartey.
He
is, however, confident that another site would be found for a landfill.
According to him, his company, Waste Landfills Company Limited, had found two
pits with similar capacity around which would be used as landfill once the
Nsumia landfill is decommissioned next year.
Touching
on what would happen after Nsumia had been decommissioned, Mr Quartey said,
“Once the landfill is decommissioned, it is more like we have reclaimed the
land, so we can use it for a car park, we can use it for a market or a football
pitch. We can use it for a recreational centre...”
Nsumia
landfill
The
landfill site, an abandoned quarry, the size of the Accra Sports Stadium, was
acquired in 2013 but operations began in August 2014. Occupying a space of
22,000 square metres with a depth of 25,000 metres, the site receives an
average of 800 tonnes of municipal solid waste and domestic waste from Accra
and Nsawam daily.
According
to Mr Quartey, averagely 70 trucks dump their waste at the site every day since
it started operating about 15 months ago, adding that they were estimating that
the landfill would remain in operation for another 15 months.
“When
this place becomes full, we have acquired similar pits. This place used to be
an abandoned quarry pit and it was filled with water and was killing people, so
we had to come in, we took the water out, we redesigned the pit and then we
transformed it into a landfill,” he said.
A
staff of 25, including bulldozer operators, compactor operators, data clerks,
mechanics, janitors, supervisors and security men, work at the landfill, aside
from the scavengers who visit the site daily to recover some of the waste,
including plastics and metals.
Communities
fumigated
Mr
Quartey spoke to the Daily Graphic during a fumigation exercise at two
communities sited close to the Nsumia landfill site, Nsumia and Dobro in the
Nsawam Adoagyiri Constituency and Ankwa Dobro Electoral Area, last Friday,
against vectors that were likely to spread diseases.
The
exercise was carried out by Waste Landfills, managers of landfill sites in
Accra and beyond, and a subsidiary of the Zoomlion and the Jospong Group of
companies, as part of their corporate social responsibility to the two
communities.
Mr
Quartey said the exercise was carried out once every quarter, to eliminate
vectors such as houseflies and mosquitoes among other insects that were
attracted to the landfill.
“We
are managing a landfill site and technically there may be the notion of
outbreak of diseases, so we are carrying this particular project out to counter
some of these things that may occur or that may appear in the towns,” he
stated.
He
added that the landfill itself was fumigated every day against the vectors and
the spread of diseases. The garbage dumped at the site is also spread,
compacted and covered daily with laterite to keep out stench.
Fire
at landfill
The
assistant site manager of the landfill, Mr Raymond Otu, said a fire outbreak
that occurred at the site some weeks ago was put out by staff in a week with
the aid of their bulldozers and excavators, when the fire service was unable to
put it out.
Mr
Otu said huge cost was incurred in the management of the site, which included
maintenance of equipment, spare parts, fuels and lubricants as well as
protective gear that ran to about GH¢500,000 every month.
Impact
on residents
The
Assemblyman for the Ankwa Dobro Electoral Area, Mr Moses Ainoo, expressed his
satisfaction with the fumigation exercise and said Waste Landfills had kept
their word to conduct such exercise to rid the two communities of the insects
that had invaded those areas as a result of the heaps of rubbish deposited at
the landfill.
He
was also grateful that the strong stench that hitherto emanated from the
landfill was no more, due to steps that had been taken by the company.
Mr
Ainoo also told the Daily Graphic that a deep pit was left when the Peabo, Ways
and Freytag and Taysec companies, which used the site as a stone quarry,
stopped operations, and the pit collected water that caused the drowning and
death of three males in the community.
A
resident of Nsumia, Ms Regina Okine, who spoke with the Daily Graphic, attributed
the invasion of mosquitoes and the prevalence of mosquitoes and other tiny
insects that inflicted bites on them as a result of the landfill. She also said
they had to endure foul smell from the landfill, especially when it rained.
Writer’s
email: edmund.asante@graphic.com.gh
This story was first published by the Daily
Graphic on February 3, 2016
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