More delays at Riverton dump
FOR the second time in less than a week, garbage trucks were on Thursday forced to wait in a long line at the Riverton City Waste Disposal facility in Kingston before they were able to dispose of waste collected mainly from the Corporate Area.
This time, as was the case earlier this week, the problem was associated with faulty equipment on the landfill.
The Observer was on the scene investigating rumours of a fire at the dump when a worker reported to landfill supervisor Cleveland Francis, that one of the tracks of the single working tractor on the site had broken and needed to be welded back on.
“Di track break off so mi a go weld it on back now. Mi tell dem sey fi send dem up two by two,” he said, addressing Francis.
“It will be down for at least an hour,” Francis later told the Observer. This was near 11:30 am.
Up to 4:00 pm, the broken track had not been repaired. A source from the dump said, however, that another tractor had been procured and that work should have resumed by late evening.
Since Monday, garbage collectors have been experiencing delays at the dump because of repeated malfunctioning of the D-9 tractor that scrapes the waste onto heaps after it is dropped. That problem, which has since been rectified, was caused by a leaking transmission. On Thursday, however, the failure of the track led to further delays.
“Ideally, we need one tractor to do 16 hours per day, two bulldozers to do 12 hours each and a front-end loader to do 10 hours. That would give us 50 heavy equipment hours per day to deal with the regular waste, tyre cells and metals.
“[But] from Sunday until now, we haven’t had 50 tractor hours yet. Look at that and you’ll see how bad the situation is,” Francis told the Observer.
“It’s not necessarily that we are short of equipment. We have the equipment but they aren’t working. We need major repairs. Other than the one tractor, we have nothing else. We’ve been trying for the better part of the year to get some equipment but he tendering process is long.”
On the site of the dump, six broken-down tractors sit idle.
Landfill workers say they have to turn instead to hired equipment but added that solution also had problems because of the low rates paid to contractors, the long period it takes for monies to be disbursed to them and the rough terrain of the landfill which easily damages the heavy-duty equipment.