Cell Two of Haags Bosch Landfill officially opens

-Gov’t one step closer to improving sanitation management

-Min. Dharamlall

Minister of Local Government and Regional Development, Hon. Nigel Dharamlall on Friday commissioned Cell Two of the Haags Bosch Sanitary Landfill site.

The Minister told the site managers and contractors there that the commissioning brings the Government one step closer to improving sanitation management. This would allow Georgetown to recapture its former glory as the garden city, boosting its tourism potential, as well as creating a healthy environment for citizens.

To this end, he said that Cell Two is a semi-aerobic landfill that will allow faster deterioration of solid waste, which is environmentally safer than what obtained in Cell One. This Cell features perforated pipes covered with rubble that would be able to stockpile waste much faster.

“We spend a lot of money on the collection and disposal of garbage at the Central Government level… This facility ideally, was supposed to be servicing municipal waste of Georgetown and wider Region Four.”

Minister Dharamlall said over $500 million would be spent on solid waste management this year. 

Meanwhile, he noted that Cell One intakes about 450 tonnes of waste per day, which, based on the capacity of Cell Two, would reduce that Cell’s lifespan from seven years to five years or five years and six months.

While the amount of waste generated countrywide is staggering, it also signals the country’s economic growth and its development.  To this end, the Government is examining various strategies to utilise the waste for the country’s benefit.

“As a Government too, I think that even whilst we are collecting and disposing of solid waste, we also have to make a business and we have had quite a lot of expressions of interest in converting waste to energy.

One of the things that we’re looking at or the proposals that we looked at, we would like to consider as part of our expanding the energy network of our country, that companies can convert waste to energy, maybe up to US eight cents per kilowatt-hour,” he said.

Minister Dharamlall again called on businesses to make solid waste management part of their cost centres and urged citizens to properly dispose of their waste.

Moving forward, Director of Sanitation at the Ministry, Mr. Satrohan Nauth said Cell Two can hold about 930,000 tonnes of waste.  To this end, waste diversion methods would be applied, which means that waste would be separated according to type to promote better decomposition.  The Ministry would also construct temporary roads to access the site.

“Both cells have their advantages and disadvantages but there are different ways of handling waste. However, with Cell Two, we will try to ensure more compaction of the waste, more daily cover. For the past few years, we would have had complaints about odours from surrounding residents so we want to eliminate that so systems will be put into place,” Mr. Nauth said.

Another leachate system would be installed at the landfill site to handle liquids from Cell Two.

In 2019, S. Jagmohan Hardware Supplies and Construction Services was awarded a $290 million contract to construct Cell Two. The project had an 18-month lifespan, which was executed in three phases.

The Ministry allocated $1.1 billion for sanitation management in this year’s National Budget. Sums from the Budget were used to complete Cell Two as well as to establish landfill sites in Regions Three and Five.