Good news at dump
Private enterprise makes landfill site functional again
PRIVATE companies engaged by the Ndlambe Municipality to clean up the Port Alfred refuse dump and get it up to operational standards have effected an almost miraculous transformation.
Viv Dell was hired by the municipality to use a grader and TLB to move the mounds of refuse that littered the site and to arrange it so that access could be gained to the site.
For the past few years the Port Alfred dump site has become an eyesore cluttered with waste scattered willy-nilly. Since the closure of the Bushman’s refuse site due to a high court judgment against the municipality some time ago, the Port Alfred dump has been the only operational refuse site in Ndlambe and it has been neglected and abused as a seemingly endless supply of waste has been deposited there.
Fires have been set at the dump and local residents have had to endure smoke inhalation from the burning toxic refuse.
However, within a week of being commissioned, and in conjunction with Mphele Engineers who are working with the municipality to optimise the use of the dump, Dell and his men have cleared and levelled a large area at the dump and created paths for vehicles to follow and dump their refuse at the appropriate section of the site.
“I was going to use the TLB to shift the waste, but decided to rather go with a crane as this will enable us to do a better job faster,” said Dell, whose son is also supplying equipment to the site.
Marius Els, who is a director at Mphele Engineers, has been offering advice and strategy as to the best way of organising the dump to improve performance as well as to make the job of controlling the dump easier for whoever will take over its management.
“We are the consultants on the job and have made recommendations to the municipality as to how best to clean up the dump and make it workable,” Els said.
At this time the job is to clear a pathway to enable vehicles to enter the site and move to the appropriate location to deposit refuse.
Els asked Dell to set up areas for different types of waste including plastics, paper, biodegradable waste and so forth.
This will make it much easier for anyone to identify refuse by type and could pay dividends in respect to the recycling effort.
“We level the waste and place a layer of soil over the top before adding more,” Els said.
Dell, who has expressed an interest in tendering for the job of maintaining the dump when the official tender is released, said he already had a man on site who could fulfil requirements.
“We need a guard at the gate, as well as someone to physically manage the dumping of refuse,” Dell explained.