WATCH: Harmful waste spotted at Alberton’s waste disposal site
Following complaints that surfaced over the state of Alberton’s waste disposal site, Ward 37 councillor Tiaan Kotzé recently made a shocking discovery at the site.
This was after he conducted an unannounced oversight visit to the Heidelberg Road transfer station. During his visit, he was shocked to find lightweight disposable garments, medical waste and surgical gloves dumped at the waste disposal site.
The garments are mainly worn as protection against hazardous materials, mostly during fogging and for protection against infectious materials.
According to Kotzé, the serious discovery of medical waste, especially during these Covid-19 times, is a great health and safety concern.
“The dumping of jumpsuits at this transfer station should not be happening. It should be incinerated or taken to a hazardous waste landfill site. The staff was also shocked by the discovery.
“I discovered there is a serious lack of access control, and there is dumping everywhere on-site not just in the skip bins,” he said.
Kotzé reiterated that the site is another symptom of the mismanagement of the Department of Environmental Affairs.
He assured that the matter was escalated to the MMC of Environment and Waste and MMC of Health and Social Development.
Zweli Dlamini, City of Ekurhuleni’s spokesperson, confirmed that the depot management was made aware of the hazardous waste spotted at the transfer station.
Upon investigation, he said it was reported that some vehicle came to the site with loaded materials including garden waste to use the services of the transfer station.
“Spotters at the station realised that after the said vehicle left it had dumped mixed waste which included possible Covid-19 PPE. The said possible Covid-19 PPE was transported to a landfill site for incineration and the matter was also reported to the health department,” he said.
Dlamini assured that workers and security guards on site have been instructed to be extra vigilant to spot any material that is not allowed to be dumped on site.
“Residents and small business are encouraged to only dump non-hazardous materials at the transfer station. This is to avoid exposure of health risk to both the people working on-site and public members that are using the site,” he said.
