The facility initially served as a place for residents to drop off their rubbish. From here, recyclables are removed, and Merafong transports the rest to the municipal dumping site in Rooipoort.
However, for most of the past five years, the municipality has not taken the rubbish to Rooipoort. For the past year, at least, it seems to have stopped doing anything at all at the dump.
Several residents and visitors have recently complained that the site now looks worse than ever.
“I often go to rubbish dumps, but the conditions at this place are really out of hand,” a local business person complains.
The transfer station itself is so full that there is hardly anywhere that is free of rubbish. The air is permanently filled with the toxic fumes of burning rubber and plastic.
In one corner, large piles of wood, brought from underground at one of the mines, are also waiting to be burned. Its distinctive yellowish colour comes from being covered in mine sludge, likely radioactive.
Harvesters at the site burn the wood for the gold in the sludge.
The site is so congested that people now dump their waste on either side of the road, beyond the turn-off to the traffic department. Heaps of rubbish block the gravel road to Munt Street.
Meanwhile, the sewage streams from the maintenance holes on the sidewalks – buried beneath piles of rubbish – and flows down the road.
Although the Herald asked about the rubbish and sewage leaks on Tuesday, the municipality did not respond.