DA sanitises pit toilets for Mandela Day

The DA has called on Ekurhuleni’s mayor, Mondli Gungubele, to stop ignoring pit toilets in informal settlements and to find simple, effective and inexpensive solutions to bring dignity to those people forced to use them.

On Wednesday, the DA’s Jack Bloom MPL, leader of the DA in the Gauteng Legislature, was accompanied by Ekurhuleni caucus leader Shelley Loe and ward councillors Tania Campbell and Hilary Coke, to Makause and Delmore, two of the worst affected informal settlements, in which residents dig their own pit toilets.

Bloom was showcasing a product designed to rid pit toilets of the smell, flies and health risks associated with improper sanitation.

Loe observed that both of these settlements were less than 5km from the mayor’s office and it baffled her that he could continue to deny the sheer number of residents in the metro who still use pit toilets as well as the “bucket” system.

Loe said she had, for over two years, been bringing the plight of informal settlement dwellers to the mayor’s attention and it was high time he responded, to help residents help themselves.

Bloom said it was ridiculous that Ekurhuleni continued to spend millions of Rand a year emptying portable chemical toilets – mostly inefficiently – which did not serve communities when there were cheaper, cleaner and far more desirable solutions which it could employ.

Bloom explained to crèche owners that he had experimented with several different products but that, to date, the liquid bacteria he was using was the most cost effective.

Loe said it was important that children, especially, were provided with proper sanitary facilities as they were the most susceptible to disease, most particularly in the crèches where diseases naturally spread.

She believed that this was the kind of initiative that Nelson Mandela, who was known for his fondness of children, would be proud of.

The small sachet, mixed into a bucket of water and poured into the pit, worked in a similar way to a septic tank, the bacteria serving to dissolve urine and faeces.

All residents needed to do was pour one bucket of water into each treated toilet for four days after the initial treatment.

The effect – no smell or flies due to the elimination of the human waste by the bacteria in the fluid – would last for three months, at least.

Loe said, having seen first-hand how a simple, inexpensive product could make such a huge difference, that she would be tabling a proposal to council, urging the metro to put out a tender for this product or similar products that would be able to do the same job.

While the metro ponders over the DA’s proposal, the DA will encourage communities to club together and facilitate bulk buying of these products at a reduced price, to make their way of life a little easier.