WHILE garbage is piling up on the streets of Kempton Park and no one knows whether to use their wheelie bins or not, the City of Ekurhuleni has yet to say anything about the current debacle.
Kempton Express and ward councillors alike have been battling to get answers from the metro.
Ward Clr Pieter Henning said the refuse truck arrived in Pomona Ext 2 and 3 on Friday and only collected refuse from the few wheelie bins put out by residents.
“The crew of this tuck hurled abuse at residents as to why they were not putting their refuse out in wheelie bins. In Glen Marais, the truck arrived and collected all the black bags and left the refuse which was put out in wheelie bins.”
According to Henning, the agreed effective date for the use of wheelie bins in Ward 25 is only December 1, whereas the date given for other wards was November 1. The agreed dates apparently had little effect, however, as refuse was either not being collected on the scheduled days or bins were not being serviced.
Henning said the waste removal department undertook that refuse would be collected over the weekend, which did not happen. “We are now sitting with a serious potential health risk, especially where large volumes of waste have been put outside secure complexes.
“I urge all top management to urgently attend and remove all non-collected waste in Ward 25.”
Meanwhile, Ward Clr Gideon van Zyl called over the weekend for the use of wheelie bins to be halted immediately.
“Please note that in the absence of any communication from the municipality regarding the challenges experienced with the operational use of wheelie bins, my view is that the use of wheelie bins should be stopped with immediate effect and that we should revert to using black bags for refuse collection,” van Zyl said.
Although some of the backlog had been cleared over the weekend, waste collection “has become unpredictable in the run-up to November 1 and has completely depreciated close to the level of non-existence.
“Operational use of the wheelie bins by the teams is inconsistent,” van Zyl continued. “In some cases only wheelie bins are being serviced, in some cases only black bags are being serviced, and in some cases both black bags and bins are serviced.
“Despite most councillors alerting all levels of the waste department of the operational failure to service wheelie bins since November 1, there has been no communication from the municipality to answer queries.”
In addition, van Zyl said, not all refuse vehicles had been equipped to handle wheelie bins. “I also came to understand that even trucks that were equipped with the lifting mechanisms for wheelie bins were using it incorrectly, subsequently slowing down the collection process.”
He also said allegations had been made by operational staff that they were ordered not to empty wheelie bins. This was in complete conflict with the instructions to the community and the information that was communicated to councillors.
Margaret Alberts-Ross of Van Riebeeck Park said her refuse collection was five days overdue by Monday.
“When I get the exterminator’s account for the rats I will forward it to the metro,” Alberts-Ross commented. “Why should my family be around an infestation of rats due to the inability of the mayor following up on refuse collection?”
