“Why should scrap metal dealers be allowed to make money at ratepayers’ expense?”
This was the question asked by the ward 18 councillor in Edenvale, Clr Heather Hart, last week.
“Look at any scrap meter dealer and all around you will see a total mess as sellers either strip their spoils in the proximity of the dealerships, or dump what they cannot sell,” said Clr Hart.
She added that it costs the Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipality (EMM) a fortune every year to clean up, often with minimal success.
“This is despite chapter seven of the EMM’s health bylaws, which includes scrap metal dealerships as s possibly ‘offensive’ trade which requires that the premises be kept neat and tidy with a stipulation that the vicinity in which the offensive dealer trades must not be affected negatively,” Clr Hart said.
She added that scrap metal dealers should be held accountable for the vicinity in which they operate, as well as making space in their dealerships for stripped and waste materials.
Clr Hart brought a motion before council at the end of October to ask that the health bylaws be amended to include that dealers maintain their property.
“This should go a long way to ensuring that the cost of cleaning is for their account not ours, and that if they do not comply, they can face severe penalties, even to the extent of losing their trading licences,” Clr Hart said.
Council did not pass this motion as a resolution, but did support the need to investigate what new regulations could be introduced to alleviate these problems.
