As a labour dispute at Pikitup’s Marlboro depot keeps collection trucks off the streets, Alexandra is increasingly becoming buried in trash.
What began as scattered piles along the township’s avenues has, over the course of more than a week, spilt from median strips onto roads.

In some parts of Alexandra, including Pan Africa Shopping Centre, the growing heap of rubbish have attracted scavenging goats, and in other parts, it has choked off some parts of the pavement.

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The worst of it can be seen along Alfred Nzo Street between 2nd and 4th Avenue, where the median has all but disappeared beneath the waste, some of it now spreading onto the road itself. Nearby, sections of Watt Avenue near the Pan Africa shopping centre are similarly overwhelmed, while Vincent Tshabalala Road has also seen pollution levels climb sharply.

Faced with the mounting mess, residents on 8th Avenue chose not to wait any longer. After days of watching for trucks that never came, a group of them organised their own clean-up, determined to stop the situation from getting worse. “We saw that it was better that we clean up ourselves as a community, because some rubbish is blown into the passage when it is windy,” resident Glory Mokgola said.

Mokgola, working alongside fellow residents Rose Shuma and Melita Mohatli on July 29, pointed to the toll the rubbish is taking on residents, warning that it is beginning to hurt local businesses, including two open-air braai stands operating close to the pile, and that it poses a health hazard to children who play nearby.

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Their initiative comes only days after ward councillors themselves led a coordinated clean-up on July 25 and 26, mobilising residents and arranging roughly four waste collection trucks to remove properly bagged rubbish from the area, an effort now undone by the fresh build-up.

Ward 107 councillor Floyd Ngwenya acknowledged that the renewed crisis is tied directly to the ongoing labour dispute at Pikitup, but insisted that Alexandra cannot be allowed to bear the cost of it. While voicing support for the striking workers’ demands, he was firm that the township’s cleanliness could not be sacrificed in the process.

For its part, Pikitup has confirmed that the protest action has severely disrupted operations, particularly at its Marlboro depot, where casual workers have physically blocked permanent staff from leaving to carry out scheduled collections. The entity’s spokesperson, Anthony Selepe, addressed the disruption in a statement.

“The ongoing protest action has significantly affected operations, particularly at the Marlboro depot, where casual workers have prevented permanent employees from leaving the depot to undertake scheduled collection services,” Selepe said. He said Pikitup is in talks with the protesting workers in an effort to bring operations back on track.

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