The lack of refuse removal has been a pressing issue in Kempton Park for months.
Despite the announcement that only wheelie bins will be serviced from March 5, many areas, which do use wheelie bins, have not had service delivery for as long as four weeks.
The latest problem is due to strike action at the Kempton Park waste removal depot, Ald André du Plessis, DA shadow MMC for environmental development, told Express on Wednesday morning. Apparently no refuse removal took place on Tuesday.
“The Kempton waste removal service has collapsed,” he said. According to him, the City of Ekurhuleni has put a moratorium on overtime, only allowing each employee 40 hours a month.
“The staff at the Kempton depot got disgruntled because of [this], so they got their trade union involved. [The workers] were encouraged to strike, so they can get more overtime,” Du Plessis added.
According to him, it doesn’t seem as if Ekurhuleni will be capable of resolving this issue any time soon.
What makes matters worse, Du Plessis said, is that the Kempton Park depot does not have the required number of modified trucks that can load wheelie bins.
“The removal of refuse bags were to be stopped from March 5, then neither bags nor bins were collected.”
Due to the backlog this issue caused, paired with the strike action, Du Plessis believes the depot is unable to keep up.
“Every day they don’t collect, they fall behind even more,” he said.
He encouraged residents to still put out their wheelie bins on the allocated days. “If it hasn’t been collected on the scheduled day, people must let their councillors know so they can contact the depot.”
Unfortunately, Du Plessis has no confidence that the issue will be resolved any time soon.
