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ABERDEEN NEWS - The state of the Aberdeen Municipal refuse tip is a disgrace, according to many disgruntled residents.
People who have been living in the town for over 20 years are complaining that its present state is the worst that they have ever seen it, and one resident took the Advertiser to see the conditions there on a cold and blustery afternoon a few weeks ago. Normally, apparently, there are several people scavenging at the tip, and others trying to tell people where to park to offload, and expecting to be paid for this.
Due to the biting wind, this hazard was at least avoided this week.
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The layout of the site is such that, turning in from the N9, drivers cross a grid, and then travel about 350m along a dirt road, through poles which presumably once held gates, and then the road swings to the right and then right again into the normal offloading area.
The access road is still fenced part of the way on the left, before the road bends round to the right, but most of the fencing has been removed. There now appears to be another dump site behind the fencing on the left, where people are leaving their rubbish as it is impossible to access the main site due to unstructured heaps of rubbish everywhere. The fencing on the end, facing Lotusville, has been completely removed, with only a few rusty poles remaining.
Some of the rubbish has been burned, and boxes, tins, broken glass and sundry other unsavoury and unhygienic items are piled everywhere, making it impossible to get near to the original offloading area. Those who take their rubbish there on a regular basis have seen the deterioration of the facility almost weekly, and do not feel safe there. The situation has been reported many times to the municipality in Aberdeen.
Some of the rubbish has been burned, and boxes, tins, broken glass and sundry other unsavoury and unhygienic items are piled everywhere.
During a follow-up visit last week, it was seen that it is more or less impossible to get through the previously gated area, and the rubbish is just dumped on the access road. At the rate that the rubbish piles are creeping down this road, it will soon reach the designated picnic spot on the N9.
Once again, there were many scavengers on the site, who immediately approached any vehicle arriving to dump rubbish.
“Surely, when the municipal truck takes the town’s rubbish there almost every day, the workers notice the state of affairs?” said one resident in despair.
According to information the Advertiser was given by a resident from a source at the Aberdeen municipal offices, there is a problem with the front end loader which is supposed to come from Graaff-Reinet regularly to push all the rubbish to a central area.
No response has been forthcoming from the Municipality.
Newcomers to the town are horrified at the dreadful state of the facility, and some have asked why Aberdeen does not have a new structure like the Waste Transfer station in Graaff-Reinet, with proper recycling. However, as can be seen from articles in the Advertiser and comments on social media, the state of the Graaff Reinet facility is not much better.
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