Mobile recycle trucks bad for business

THE business community and residents of Dr Goonam (Prince Edward) Street in Durban's city centre are fed up with a contingent of large cargo trucks that park illegally on their street.

Pretesh Naik, a businessman who also lives on the street said trucks have been parking illegally on the busy road for more than three months. “They come early in the morning and are there all day during business hours. I have phoned Metro Police dozens of times to try to get them to remove these trucks that are obviously parked illegally. They come in the morning to buy cardboard and papers but block access to parking bays,” said Naik.

According to Naik, the trucks are parked along the road on a daily basis, either double or triple parked and drivers get away with the infringement. “It doesn't make sense if we park outside our own shop or flats and haven't fed the meter, we get ticketed but these trucks just get away with it.”

Another businessman, Pravesh Soni said said business had been badly affected by the encroaching trucks. “The trucks alone is one problem, but they also have very aggressive people working with them and those that usually do business with them are homeless and vagrants, so we have people with stolen green rubbish bins coming to our street from all over the city!”

Soni said the men who work on the trucks hang around all day and harass anyone who asks them to move. “They lean on customers cars, the vagrants sort their cardboard on cars and they smoke drugs. We have had customers phone us to say they came in to see us but couldn't come in because they were scared of these guys hanging around. It is inconvenient, bad for business and yet we are helpless because Metro always comes too late when we call them,” he said.

Another businessman who wished to remain anonymous said what was needed was for the trucks to be allocated a place to operate from that didn't inconvenience anyone else.

Meanwhile Naik was gravely concerned about the aggressive nature of the truck workers and the insurgence of vagrants, some of which were whoonga addicts that had started coming into the area to sell their cardboard. “It's really getting out of hand. Residents in the area cannot get into their buildings as they live in fear that these whoonga guys might rob them of their belongings.They also leave a terrible mess with leftovers from the recycled paper and cardboard thrown on the road, creating a breeding ground for flies and mosquitoes,” he said.

Themba Zulu, manager at Sasuka Recycling one of the trucks operating in the street told Berea Mail he would look into the matter. “I did have a call about the drivers giving people a hard time and spoke to him but I will go and see whats going on,” he said.

Metro Police Senior Superintendent Eugene Msomi had not responded to Berea Mail at the time of going to press.