The sidewalk outside the Highveld Road Transfer Station is drowning in waste, some of which was set alight on Tuesday.
The station had been closed for days amidst the current issues around workers being dismissed.
The station is closed due to the “incompetency of officials”, said ward councillor Jaco Terblanche on Tuesday.
“Ekurhuleni officials aren’t ensuring the removal of rubbish, neither do they assure that all terrains within the City are functional in this regard.”
For him, this has been an issue especially prominent in Kempton Park.
“Firstly, the compact pressers within the station aren’t functional and are constantly broken or in need of service.”
This leaves residents with no other choice but to keep adding waste to the mountains of rubbish outside the transfer station.
“Those responsible for handling waste leaves the waste until the station is over full.”
He said the Highveld Road Transfer Station is due for an upgrade, according to the solid waste master plan, which includes a recycling station.
“From the top of my head, total upgrades will cost about R16-million,” said Terblanche, but he has to confirm this.
“As the rubble removal issue in Kempton is spiralling out of control, it affects other levels of waste management to a point where residents might have nowhere to turn to. This is because transfer stations have also become non-functional.”
Alternative transfer stations available to the public for dumping waste include the Norkem Park and Birchleigh transfer stations.
Express has not received comment from the metro at the time of going to print.
