BASSETERRE, St. Kitts - ALL trash, be it household garbage, unusable vehicles or old building materials, are suppose to end up at one place - the Solid Waste Management Corporation Landfill in Conaree Village.
It is however said that businesses that operate heavy machinery do not make use of the Landfill but instead take their rubbish elsewhere.
SKNVibes spoke with the Operation Supervisor of Solid Waste Management Corporation, Wilmon McCall, who disclosed that the entity has been questioning what the heavy equipment operators do with their everyday trash and materials from demolished buildings.
He said that these bits and pieces are supposed to reach Solid Waste Management but they do not, which begs to question where they go.
He said the heavy equipment operators present challenges to Solid Waste.
"One of the greater challenges they present is many of them, we do not know how they operate because we do not know much about them."
He stated that the heavy equipment businesses, many of which is situated in the vicinity of the Landfill, do not take their garbage there, which leaves the Solid Waste Management Corporation questioning where the garbage goes and what is eventually done with it.
Giving an example of a building that was demolished in the vicinity of the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank, McCall said that the trash from the demolition was never taken to the Landfill.
"I have seen big buildings in Basseterre being demolished and not one grain of sand reach the Landfill," he said.
McCall said he called a number of people together to enquire about such.
"Quite recently I called several persons together...we formed a group and developed a questionnaire, so we're going to do an audit on all of these stuff. We are going to ask them questions based on what we want to know."
He went on to explain that the audit would be a very big challenge, adding that the business people do not want to give such information.
He also mentioned the suspicion of land mining and refilling as well as the belief that many of those businesses have their own landfill.
"Many of these guys, they don't come to the Solid Waste Management to dispose garbage. You have 20 or 30 workers working in your yard every day, so what do they do with the garbage? They eat food every day, they drink, they do all kinds of things...so where is the garbage?" he asked.
