70 April 2016 - Business View Caribbean
The National Solid Waste
Management Authority
“Jamaica’s beauty is our duty”
In March 2015, a massive fire burned at the Riverton
City municipal solid waste dump on the outskirts of
Kingston, Jamaica. The conflagration raged on for two
weeks causing schools, businesses, and other servic-
es to shut down or close early because of the poor air
quality caused by noxious emissions from the burning
of tires and other toxic refuse. The dump fire covered
almost 90 acres and cost in excess of $200 million to
finally bring under control. And this was not the first
time that the Riverton dump went up in flames.
In fact, fires had been a recurring problem for almost
a dozen years before this last blaze brought so much
cost and damage to the people of Jamaica. In 2012
