The Mandela landfill has once again caught fire and this time it is believed that the fire was deliberately started.
According to a government engineer who was at the site yesterday, “The fire was deliberately started (yesterday) morning at around 5.30am by three persons of unknown identity right now.”
Also at the landfill was a team of fire-fighters along with Puran Brothers who had an excavator digging a path for water to flow for the fire-fighters.
The engineer said that it will take about a week to quell the flames. “We are lucky that [the fire] is only confined to the garbage ramp.” Some 300 tonnes of garbage is taken into the Mandela Landfill daily which is now overflowing into the La Repentir Cemetery.
A solution to the overflowing landfill site will see the closed cell two being put back into use. The government engineer explained that between cells one and two a two-metre void exists for more garbage. This will be made use of until the opening of the new land fill site at Haags Bosch on the East Bank.
Haags Bosch is scheduled for opening on January 15 of next year. Georgetown Mayor Hamilton Green had made a request to have a cell opened in October of this year but this was pushed back to its official date in January.
According to Green, the municipality is working with the works and local government ministries to address the situation.
