THE management at a children’s village in Botha’s Hill have expressed health concerns and frustration over the non-collection of refuse in the past couple of months.

Botha’s Hill-based iKhethelo Children’s Village – an NPO which provides care to orphans and vulnerable children – has resorted to burning the waste which, according to the NPO’s management, has not been collected for the past three months.

The burning of the refuse is done on a weekly basis and it has raised concern for the village’s management about the impact it may have on the health of the children and on the environment.

One of the village’s managers, who asked not to be named, said they have reported this to the eThekwini Municipality several times but nothing has happened.

This manager said the waste at the village is not collected despite the refuse truck being spotted doing its regular rounds in the area.

“This has been an ongoing problem which we experienced last year also and when we would report it, the rubbish would be collected but that would stop after some time and now it has been months that it has not been collected,” said the manager.

They added that they are worried about the health of the children staying at the village and that on windy days, the area is filled with litter, while monkeys make matters worse.

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“We do not understand why the rubbish is not collected because we pay our rates, this problem is really frustrating,” said the manager.

A PR councillor in the area, Mxolisi Khubisa, said they have received a complaint about this issue and have escalated it for attention and added that Durban Solid Waste (DSW) “is trying to fix the issue”.

The municipality was yet to respond to a media enquiry from the Highway Mail.

@caxtonlocalmedia Uncollected trash sparks health concerns at children’s village. For 3 months, iKhethelo Children’s Village in Botha’s Hill has had no refuse collection, forcing them to burn waste weekly 😷🗑️ – raising serious health and environmental risks for vulnerable children. #DurbanNews #ChildrensVillage #RefuseCrisis #iKhethelo #HighwayMail ♬ original sound – caxtonlocalmedia

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