One of the Island’s worst dumping-spots, Aeolia Drive in Devonshire, has once again become a haven for rats and mosquitos as trash piles up, all within sight of the Tynes Bay waste facility.

The overgrown stretch of road running to the back of the Public Transportation headquarters has been an eyesore for years.

In a bid to keep out the illegal dumpers, Government installed a gate at the entrance — but the barrier has been knocked down, and bulky metal waste in particular is piling up once again.

“We’ve got stoves, TVs, washing machines, refrigerators, freezers, scooters — you name it,” said former Keep Bermuda Beautiful director Eugene Harvey, showing The Royal Gazette the rusting hulk of a fridge half-filled with stagnant water. The water teemed with mosquitos.

“Some of this has been here for a long time, but there’s always new stuff coming in,” Dr Harvey added, pointing out a pile of mattresses — and a mound of tree clippings, still green, where rats scurried away.

“This one is particularly senseless, because this is horticultural waste that could so easily have been taken down to Marsh Folly and disposed of there. But he has obviously dumped it where it’s been dumped before.”

Dr Harvey said the gate, installed at KBB’s request after years of clean-ups, had proven effective while it lasted.

“It kept them out for a while, but it’s obviously been down for a long time because there’s vegetation growing over it,” he said. The Ministry of Public Works has been informed.

The bulk of the waste is large, and is believed to have come from trucks. Although the airport dump is the usual repository for metal waste, such material can be dropped off at Tynes Bay to be taken up there.

Dr Harvey said truckers might have resorted to dumping if they arrived at the wrong time and found the facility closed. Rubble, another material intended for disposal at the airport, was also dumped at the Aeolia Drive site.

“There could be truckers who take the money to drop it off, and then just dump it up here,” Dr Harvey said.

According to waste management, the fee for deliveries of waste is set according to the weight of the material.

Current KBB director Anne Hyde said the rubbish could have been discarded there by people seeking to avoid fees as small as $20 or $30 — even though the fine for illegal dumping is now $10,000.

“We find that the heaviest illegal dumping in Bermuda is within a mile radius of the Tynes Bay facility,” Ms Hyde said. “Aeolia Drive has been a real problem area for many, many years.”

In the beginning, she said, KBB cleaned up the area, but the job is now left to Government workers.

“It’s a health hazard, and we won’t subject our volunteers to that,” Ms Hyde explained.

“There are rats, and things like fridges that are rusting and falling apart and a danger to move. We’ve had discussions with Works and Engineering on the possibility of labour coming from the prison farm on day release to clean it up. That was a few years back. In the meantime we were grateful that Government installed the gate. However, the lock has been broken and the gate is off its hinges.”

In a recent statement, a Public Works spokesman said Government planned to install hidden cameras at dumping sites to catch offenders in the act.

“Cameras would be fantastic if we had the resources to monitor them, and then follow through with enforcing the law,” Ms Hyde said. “We would like to see successful prosecutions as a deterrent.”

In the meantime, behind the screen of tall trees, dumping continues to flourish — with some of the larger metal waste now sporting gang graffiti.

Questions were put to Public Works on the camera initiative, plus the replacement of the anti-dumping barrier, but no response was received by press time last night.