Apart from the dilapidated roads condition the Aberdeen community is currently inundated with, life in the community has been made even more risky because of the non availability of a dump site which is causing people to throw litters, debris and other forms of human waste on the streets.
This is mostly affecting the Aberdeen Road/Cockle Bay junction which used to be a dumping site for the community. There is now an uncontrollable dumping of waste on the area following the unprecedented removal of the dustbin by MASADA. The situation around that area now is a serious health concern, given the putrid smell emitting from the scattered dumps.
About three weeks ago, MASADA, a waste management company that has been cleaning the country withdrew all the dustbins it had deposited at the dump sites including the one at the Aberdeen Road/ Cockle Bay junction.
“This is causing serious environmental and health hazards to the people in this community especially so when it is in the rainy season,” a resident commented to this reporter.
Because there is no specific site allocated for the dumping of rubbish, the Murray Town Cemetery has become the latest recipient of living human waste. “Living humans after causing so much harm to themselves have now resorted to disturbing the dead by dumping their wastes in a graveyard that is holding the dead that are supposed to be resting in their eternities,” an SSS III student of the Grammar School commented to this reporter.
People are finding every means of getting rid of their wastes. Early this week, traders at the Aberdeen Road market resorted to dumping garbage in the middle of the road, which caused serious vehicular traffic for several days, until police arrested three of the traders early this week.
The Assistant Chairlady of the Aberdeen Road Market, Mariatu Kargbo told Awoko that if nothing is done to address the issue of dump site in the community, it will lead to “a very serious” outbreak of contagious diseases because waste is not being properly managed.
“We don’t have anywhere to deposit garbage. Most traders have resorted to keeping garbage under their tables and the side of their stalls which is not good for maintaining a healthy market,” the Chairlady remarked, noting that traders selling food stuffs may not be too caring and they sell to the public.
Madam Kargbo said as a result of this unhygienic situation at the Aberdeen market, customers are scared away from them and this is impacting on sales tremendously.
Mariatu Kargbo revealed that the matter has been reported to the Freetown City Council but since then, no move has been made to address the situation even though she said they were promised by one Sulay Parker that a Freetown City Council waste management vehicle would be sent to the area on a daily basis.
The Assistant Chair lady admitted that before, traders were dumping garbage on the main road, but that now they have stopped. However, traffic on the main Aberdeen Road is obstructed every morning by the huge pile of garbage, which the traders say they are not responsible for.
As a way of ameliorating their frustration of the lack of a general dump site, people dig pits in their compounds to deposit garbage. But according to an elderly woman at Cockle Bay, some of them have dug so many pits in their compounds that they no longer have space for digging and as a result, many of these people have also resorted to dumping garbage on the streets.
The old woman lamented, “This is pathetic! It seems as if we have been abandoned by the City Council-for bad roads, come to Aberdeen Road; for blackouts and lack of electricity, come to Aberdeen Road. Nothing is working with us here. Once this situation continues, we will continue dumping garbage on the street.”
By Betty Milton
July 26, 2013
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