Residents near Orpington in Kent have had a rather unusual and unsightly local attraction for three years now – forty feet high rubbish pile, towering over homes on that street. The rubbish heap is quite impressive (if that’s the word) in terms of size and tonnage. The stinky pile which is forty feet high, and sixty feet wide, contains over twenty thousand tons of waste, with three years in the making.
Local council has ordered rubbish removal personnel to tackle the heap with all means necessary and somehow deal with the situation as matters are getting out of hand. The rat infested pile of waste contains an unimaginable array of industrial, household and commercial waste of all sorts and kinds. One of the biggest problems stemming from this third-world site in the middle of England is not so much the ‘rotting corpses’ smell it emits, but the fire hazard it creates. Since there are so called ‘hot spots’ smouldering throughout the pile, the thing is catching fire on an almost regular basis. Recently, fire department crews have attended to twenty three fires at the site, clocking in a total of two thousand man-hours, which adds up to six hundred and fifty thousand pounds in costs for tax payers.
One environmental agency which has taken the forty feet rubbish monstrosity quite seriously is locked in a court battle with the company responsible for managing the site over its removal. At this stage, the court has ruled in favour of the environmentalists, ordering the rubbish removal of twenty five hundred tons of waste. According to local residents this is just a drop in the ocean, as there are twenty thousand tons to deal with, but it is a start.
Waste removal procedures at the site have already begun with specialised rubbish removal and disposal crews and equipment working in full swing. The idea of removing twenty five hundred tons of waste off the pile is to reduce it to a more manageable and safer size, as well as to stop the spontaneous fires which pose serious danger to the local community.
All the local councils affected by the pile of waste situation are adamant though that everything has to go, down to the last piece of rubbish. All residents living nearby the site are appalled and outraged with the lack if initiative and action, and their positon on the matter is quite clear – complete waste removal should begin immediately full stop. Locals say their voices went unheard for more than two years – if courts, environmental agencies and site operators acted timely, the pile would be twice as small by now, not twice as large.
The rubbish removal and disposal company which has been operating the site since twenty eleven is about to be crucified as one local resident put it. They also went to say that the company’s website boasts slogans and pledges of efficient, safe and ecofriendly waste removal and disposal practices and methods. All it takes is one look (or whiff) out the window to realise that their practices are anything but safe and efficient, let along ecofriendly.
