The dumping of refuse at landfill sites in Accra will soon be a thing of the past, the Mayor of Accra, Alfred Vanderpuije has said. According to him, “we have done things to this 21st century where we are totally dependent on landfill and that should be a thing of the past.” The use of landfill sites in the city has generated lots of controversy with residents in landfill areas raising concerns about the dangers posed by the practice to their lives. Residents of Weija, where the Oblogo landfill site is situated, recently blocked access to the site to press home demands for a diversion of the seepage from the landfill site from the community. But speaking on Multi TV’s current affairs programme PM EXPRESS, Mr. Vanderpuije said the assembly will stop using landfill sites altogether by 2015 and rather convert the waste collected into energy. “The refuse that today we’re talking about like we don’t like it, if we put the right system in place we will love refuse [we can use it to generate electricity] and that is where AMA is heading,” he said. According to the Accra Mayor, “the landfills are an eye-sore in our society. The landfills contribute to the health hazards that we have. “So we must end the landfill system just like we have ended the shift system. And we will end that, but when we would have ended that, we would have replaced that with processing of our refuse,” he added. Mr. Vanderpuije said the AMA is working to ensure 100 per cent waste collection so that the practice of dumping household waste into garbage containers placed at vantage points in the community will be scrapped. According to him, 90 per cent of containers used to collect refuse in communities have already been removed from the system. Meanwhile, a Senior Fellow at policy think tank, IMANI Ghana, Kofi Bentil who was also on the show, has urged the AMA to be cautious in ridding Accra of the garbage containers. According to Mr. Bentil, some communities in Accra would still need the garbage container system. Mr. Bentil drew the attention of the Mayor to one of the streets at the Akukor Photo junction, in Dansoman, which he said has been converted into a dumping site. For him, such areas still need the garbage container system. Story by Smart Abbey / Multitv.