A wall of garbage is blocking the entrance to East London's main dump site after a dispute between the municipality and contractors left the tip without bulldozers for a week.

At Second Creek dump near the city centre, queues of bakkies and trucks lined the access road. Their frustrated drivers were waiting to dump loads of household, garden and industrial refuse.

Some disgruntled customers even resorted to dumping their trash in the middle of the road, adding to the growing mountain causing the blockage.

"This is a bloody mess, what else can we do?" said Aubrey Kernekamp, before adding a load of garden refuse to the pile of rubbish.

For businesses like his, which collect garden refuse for dumping, a day without a dump site is a day without income.

The trouble with the trash started when Buffalo City Municipality failed to renew their contract with the companies that hire the bulldozers to them.

It took a week to identify the problem and commit new funds to renewing BCM's contract with the owners of the machines, an official said yesterday.

"It was a miscommunication," said Graeme Smith, general manager for community services at BCM.

Many other business owners said the delay was costing them money.

"Everyone is stressing and dumping rubbish all over the place," said Cheryl Benkenstein, the co-owner of a private refuse removal company which dumps 12 tons of rubbish a day.

She was furious to be denied access to the municipal dumps as the company, JJ Drums, pays monthly fees of R3000 for the service.

She criticised the municipality for not solving the administrative problem before the rubbish began to pile up.

?These guys knew about it but they did nothing," she said.

Officials said the entrance would be cleared by yesterday morning. But by last night it was still blocked.

For conscientious businesspeople, a privately operated dump in Gonubie was accepting garden refuse at its usual rate of R50 a load.

But to get rid of industrial waste, the only options were King William's Town and Berlin, where there are similar bulldozer problems.

At BCM's dumps, teams of bulldozers are used to compact rubbish, level the ground, cover waste with earth and ensure that there is room for the constant supply of more rubbish.

Bulldozers play an important part in keeping the Second Creek dump site level and stopping water from damming up.

The staff who drive these vehicles did not report for work until yesterday, because BCM had not renewed its contract.

"There will always be a late payment here or there," said Smith.

Daily Dispatch