May 24, 2021
Today we marked construction completion for: (1) six transfer stations in Lumley, Approved School, Allen Town, Macualey Street, Cline Town and Shell; and (2) four waste sorting platforms, approx. 450 meters of road, 1 staircase and several composting stations in the 5 hard to reach communities of Moyiba, Dwarzak, Tree Planting, Firestone and Leicester Road.
With funding from FCDO (formerly DFiD) and implementation by CRS and Concern, these interventions form part of FCC’s comprehensive and integrated waste management strategy for meeting our #Transform Freetown Sanitation Sector target – to ensure that at least 60% of solid and liquid waste is safely collected, managed and disposed of by 2022.
The new transfer stations will serve as temporary holding centers for waste collected by the FCC approved tricycles groups, and will in turn be serviced by skips which are emptied daily. The existence of these 6 transfer stations across the city will enable tricycle operators to collect more waste from households and businesses each day as they will significantly cut down on the time previously taken to travel to dump waste at the Kissy and Kingtom dumpsites.
Beyond improving positive outcomes in sanitation, the transfer stations will also create jobs for community members. In the medium term, FCC will facilitate the sorting of plastic waste in the transfer stations for onward recycling.
Today’s handing over at the Shell transfer station was attended by Her Worship the Mayor, Yvonne Aki-Sawyer OBE, the Deputy Mayor of Freetown, Osman T Koroma; Councilors and staff of FCC, Sandra Baldwin and other representatives of FCDO, CRS, Concern, Eric Massallay of MOPED (who graciously facilitated FCC’s access to the land at the Lumley, Allen Town and Approved School transfer station sites), the United Polio Brothers and Sisters Association (who made the Shell transfer station site available) and other community stakeholders.
FCC is in the process of procuring the 6 skip vehicles that will be required to operationalize the new transfer stations. We look forward to starting the transfer station operations as soon as that process is concluded.