By Hassan I. Conteh
In Waterloo, 24 kilometres (15 miles) off the capital Freetown, there is only one waste site that is serving all the many communities around.
There are, like in the capital, no dust bins or rubbish tanks at some street-points to dispose of the rubbish.
People would just go on littering the roads or streets.
This condition, in Waterloo, in particular, has caused the many rubbish to overflow on the many streets, making it uncomfortable for residents there.
The filth also results to likely diseases to human beings and animals. One particular example of an open dump site is found at Jalloh Drive at York Road.
The dump site finds itself at Jalloh Drive junction at an abandoned land probably owned by someone. It’s been going unchecked as people constantly throw dirt there.
Interviewing residents around Jalloh Drive, they said the suffocating stench usually disturbs them a lot.
One landlady name Kadiatu Kargbo narrated her discomforting feelings about the odour evaporating from the nearby dumpsite.
“Sometimes especially at night hours, the smell from the ‘dorty-box’ (dump site) affects us; but we need it around since it is not too far from where we live.”
“In as much as we may need it to be fenced or want the bumeh to be located elsewhere but we don’t want it to be too far away from us.”
Waterloo is a densely populated town with thousands of people.
It’s headed up by Kasho Holland-Cole as Western Area Rural District Council Chairman.
Unfortunately, Waterloo is having only one major dump site along the highway at Freetown Park, an area which is the busiest market environment.
Though the rubbish deposit place is too small now for the burgeoning population in Waterloo, and for this reason, plans are underway to relocate it elsewhere at a vast landfill in the provincial towns.
But Waterloo still needs many waste sites considering it vast, flat land and a dense population.
Transferring the dumpsite from Freetown Park to the countryside is not just ideal or enough as it will also result to too much discomfort for many people whose residences might be far away from the proposed new dumpsite.
Therefore, other waste sites or large container dust bins are needed to be put up or placed at some communities within the township of Waterloo.
This way, people will easily throw away the dirt in these bins or deposit large tanks for council officers to collect it and empty it out at the major dump site that will be moved, in the years to come, to a countryside landfill.