Yvonne Ba­boolal

En­vi­ron­men­tal is­sues are of no con­cern to res­i­dents of La Re­treat Road, the small hill­side com­mu­ni­ty un­der the smok­ing Gua­napo Land­fill near Ari­ma. Their on­ly con­cern is be­ing able "to eat a nice food," by sal­vaging scrap iron and just about any­thing valu­able from the dump.

Randy Lequay, 22, said he is "mind­ing" his wife and three-year-old daugh­ter from in­come earned at the dump. "Is re­al mon­ey we mak­ing for the day," he said, point­ing to the con­crete hous­es, some still un­der con­struc­tion, lin­ing La Re­treat Road.

"It hard­ly have board hous­es up here. Every­body hus­tling to build con­crete. We us­ing the mon­ey to buy good thing. In two years I buy two ve­hi­cles and a piece of land for over $35,000. "A boy could come and hus­tle up to $300 for the day up here. You save up that and by Fri­day you could end up with a lil' $2,000 to eat a nice food. All them youth­man up here, that's their hus­tle," he said, adding, "Noth­ing from there ent go­ing in we house."

How has the fire af­fect­ed them? "The fire is a lil' off thing. SWM­COL have it un­der con­trol. They cov­er it with dirt so we not walk­ing on yes­ter­day rub­bish. Every day is fresh rub­bish." Lequay al­so said the smoke is not af­fect­ing them. "The dump on a moun­tain, and when the breeze push the smoke, it go­ing up on the next moun­tain and evap­o­rat­ing in the sky," he ex­plained. "It al­most ex­tin­guish now."

The land­fill was re­opened on Wednes­day. It was closed when a fire start­ed on the site two Thurs­days ago. Some 80 per cent of the fire has been con­tained but a thin film of smoke was still be­ing emit­ted from the dump, En­vi­ron­men­tal Man­age­ment Au­thor­i­ty (EMA) of­fi­cials said.

EMA of­fi­cers have al­so been con­stant­ly in the area seek­ing to de­ter­mine if the emis­sions are tox­ic. There is spec­u­la­tion that the Sol­id Waste Man­age­ment Com­pa­ny Ltd (SWM­COL) may close the land­fill per­ma­nent­ly. The life of the Gua­napo dump and the oth­er four land­fill sites un­der SWM­COL's man­age­ment have come to a nat­ur­al end, of­fi­cials say.

The En­vi­ron­ment Min­istry is at present work­ing on a new na­tion­al waste-man­age­ment pol­i­cy which may bring new sys­tems to re­place the land­fills. Ex­cept for the fear of the dump be­ing closed, more se­ri­ous en­vi­ron­men­tal is­sues are not of any con­cern to vil­lagers liv­ing near the site.

Natasha Gomez, a moth­er of two, who de­scribed her­self as "sort of sin­gle," said, "A fel­la tell me he pull a pants and it had US$80 in the pock­ets." Gomez wore three gold rings and a gold watch. She got these from the dump, she said. "I buy the watch for $10 from a man yes­ter­day (who got it from the dump). I get the rings in the dump," she point­ed out.

"Is gold, sil­ver, US and Guyanese dol­lars and eu­ro coins you get­ting there too. When peo­ple make a mis­take and throw away a ring, is here it end­ing up." She ad­vised, "Don't wrap your jew­el­ry in tis­sue pa­per. You could throw it away by mis­take." Mac­a­roni dumped by a fac­to­ry in Tumpuna Road near­by was al­so sal­vaged by res­i­dents and resold as pet food, Gomez said."Peo­ple mind­ing dog and pig buy the mac­a­roni."

Scrap iron and alu­mini­um, how­ev­er, are the "gold" of the dump. "The scrap iron and 'gold' sell­ing back to the big boys who ex­port­ing it to Chi­na and oth­er places," Den­nis John, bare­backed and sooty, said. "Is up to $47,000 in scrap iron does be go­ing Chi­na from right here."

A lit­tle low­er down the road, Rudy's Scrap Met­al Ltd was a bee­hive of ac­tiv­i­ty as sell­ers of­floaded scrap met­al and alu­mini­um from pick­ups. A huge Sealand con­tain­er wait­ing to be filled stood in a cor­ner of the yard. Busi­ness­man Rudy Joseph, 32, said his moth­er reared him and six oth­er sib­lings off the sal­vaging busi­ness.

He said there are about five oth­er scrap-iron yards in the com­mu­ni­ty. "One man rub­bish is a next man dol­lar," dread­locked work­er Chris­t­ian Her­nan­dez philosophised.

More in­fo

• EMA

CEO of the En­vi­ron­men­tal Man­age­ment Au­thor­i­ty Joth Singh said a mon­i­tor­ing sta­tion will be set up soon on the Gua­napo Land­fill site to mea­sure emis­sions for tox­i­c­i­ty. He said on the ba­sis of the re­sults, the EMA will ad­vise the SWM­COL on when the site should be re­opened. Singh said the fire had been sig­nif­i­cant­ly re­duced.

• SWM­COL

SWM­COL com­mu­ni­ca­tions spe­cial­ist Al­li­son Awai said the fire at the Gua­napo Land­fill is about 80 per cent con­tained. A re­lease from SWM­COL on Thurs­day said the site has been re­opened. Tech­ni­cal of­fi­cer Stephen French said haz­ardous waste is not dumped at their land­fills un­less it is treat­ed and so­lid­i­fied. He said SWM­COL refers peo­ple to pri­vate waste-ser­vice providers for the dump­ing of haz­ardous waste.

French said land­fill sites are built to last be­tween 15 and 25 years, and most of those in T&T have come to the end of their lifes­pan. He said a na­tion­al waste-man­age­ment pol­i­cy will come up with new ways to dis­pose of waste prop­er­ly.