Fire Extinguished at Cayo Dump Site but Delays Persist

Two days ago, we reported on a fire at the Cayo transfer station facility. While the blaze didn’t halt garbage collection, it significantly slowed down operations. Although the fire has been extinguished, smoldering trash underneath is still being doused to prevent reignition. Today, San Ignacio Mayor Earl Trapp informed us that there’s still a delay in offloading garbage at the facility. We spoke with Rojelio Pop, Operations Manager of Belize Solid Waste Management, who explained that aside from the fire, space constraints at the facility are causing additional issues.

 

On the Phone: Rojelio Pop, Operations Manager, BSWAMA

“Once we have charred or burned materials on the ground, it is a highly – what would be the best word – improper. Yes. It’s not logical for us to place any more waste on the compound, so until we can finalize that the fire is completely out, there’s no sort of embers, there’s nothing that can trigger an outbreak of the fire, then we’ll completely push all that waste down the hill, cover it with clay, so that it’s fully contained, then we can resume taking more waste. Currently, we have capabilities to manage right now because the compound isn’t clear. Thirdly, the transfer station has a certain capacity, and right now for it to work as it should, it cannot be overfilled. Right now it’s overwhelmed with waste because San Ignacio produces a lot of waste and then you combine it with other communities, Benque, other private providers, the system is so small that the capacity is overwhelmed easy. So the machines cannot go into the transfer station and for them to load from the chute, the machines have to go into the transfer station, they have to have maneuverability. That doesn’t exist currently. So really it’s about capacity. There are many challenges that the contractor is facing. So, it’s multifaceted, but even with that, if we push all of that chart burned waste from where it is right now and clear the component, and we – my aim would be to clear that off by next week, then we would be able to place more waste. And yes, we would not see behind the curtains of what is actually occurring because there’s that lingering problem with the contractual issues. That is a long-term problem. I’m not sure we are going to address that within a short period of time, but we would be able to place more incoming waste onto the compound because it will be safe, but the problem would still persist.”