Riverton City dump is Closing soon, and residence will of to leave

When the problem-plagued Riverton City dump off Spanish Town Road in St Andrew is finally closed, hundreds of people from all over the country could be left without a source of income.

“Is nuff, nuff people hustle off a di dump,” a resident of the community who did not wish to be named told Loop News on a visit to the country’s largest waste disposal site.

“Whole heap a people depend pon di dump fi real,” added another resident, as the two friends engaged the news team in a conversation in which they sought to set one thing straight.

The two friends bore holes in the long-standing perception that most of the people who earn from the dump live in the community.

“Riverton people dem nuh go dump. Riverton people hardly go pon di dump. A nuh Riverton people go dump. A mostly road people,” one of the women said.

“Sir, you know say people come here from St Ann and St Elizabeth to do recycling, all two, four times per week?” one of them asked the Loop News team.

“If you should see these people coming here in the early mornings, trust me, you wouldn’t believe it. Some of them been coming here for years,” said one of the residents, who, at 42, has lived in Riverton City all her life.

“And people in their motor vehicles come too,” the other added. She is 36 years old and has also lived in Riverton City since the day she was born.

The two friends explained that people from several parishes descend on the dump each day, as it appears to be their only source of income.

“Some people pay dem taxi fi drop dem off and pick dem up back later in the day when dem finish pick items off the dump,” she said.

According to the resident, the most popular items for recycling include plastic bottles, cardboard, items of clothing, and scrap metal.

While in the community, Loop News caught up with two of the “road people” who visit the dump regularly.

Like most people the team encountered, the two did not want their pictures taken.

Tameka Johnson is a middle-aged woman who lives in Old Harbour, St Catherine. She was seen leaving the dump with a large bag of PET (polyethylene terephthalate) bottles balanced expertly atop her head.

She was walking towards Spanish Town Road to await transportation to Spanish Town and then on to Old Harbour.

“About six years now mi been doing this on and off,” she shared. “At first mi did fraid to come down here, but dem nuh really trouble you when dem realise say is hustle yuh a hustle,” she said.

Johnson said she uses the money she makes from selling plastic bottles to assist her only child, a daughter, who has a young child and gets no support from the father.

She told Loop News that while she is not strong enough to do domestic work, it gets rough sometimes searching for items on the dump as you have to face the sun, rain “and all kinds a chemical and other stuff weh mix up inna di garbage”.

Johnson said she is always concerned about her health when rummaging through other people’s waste.

A man, who spoke on condition of anonymity and lives in Bull Bay, St Andrew, said he, too, was hunting PET bottles on the dump.

He told Loop News that he does it to help send his two children, ages eight and 12, to school. He has been visiting the dump for nearly 10 years.

The two women from the community who told Loop News about the “road people”, shared that they have interacted with people who have travelled from places like Bog Walk and Linstead in St Catherine, downtown Kingston, and as far away as May Pen, Clarendon and Ocho Rios, St Ann.

“They been coming to this place for years, they don’t know anywhere else. That’s why when scrap metal is down it’s like some people a go mad. They don’t have anything else to do. What them going to do?” one of the women said.

For his part, the Member of Parliament for the area, Anthony Hylton (St Andrew Western) said: “They come from all over. It’s a national thing.”

When Prime Minister Andrew Holness announced in the House of Representatives on August 5 that the Riverton City dump and others would be closed, he acknowledged that many people’s livelihood was tied to the dump and said discussions would be held on the matter.