Once again, We Care 4 Nelspruit has stepped in to remove the vast amount of garbage dumped in Brown Street on Tuesday, March 4.

According to the organisation’s founder, Pr TJ Maré, serious complaints from Mbombela’s residents about this health hazard urged them to act.

While the CoM had placed a skip in the area, it had not been cleaned and was overflowing. Maré’s organisation treated the matter as urgent and, along with some other private partners, cleared the foul-smelling heap and even sanitised the area.

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“After the complaints about the amount of garbage, our private partners, Coastal Hire and the Ndlovu Group, helped us with the much-needed equipment to remove the heap. It took the entire team two hours to remove all the rubbish. After that, we sanitised the area to kill the smell,” he said.

Maré said the stench was unbearable, and the fact that the skip was placed next to where some vendors are preparing food made him realise how urgent the matter was. With the garbage heap growing daily, it was also a major health hazard for commuters who had to use the bus station nearby.

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“The blame for this mess must not be put on the informal traders, but on the CoM for not maintaining it. The skip was placed there to reduce littering. The people who are trading on that street engaged with us, as they appreciate the fact that we have often had to step in for the municipality where their complaints fall on deaf ears,” Maré said.

He also thanked those involved for offering their own resources with no payment, because We Care 4 Nelspruit’s mission is not only to keep the town clean, but to assist residents with service delivery, which the municipality fails to do.

The CoM’s spokesperson, Joseph Ngala, said they were aware of the heaps of garbage in Brown Street that had not been removed for some time. “We had a backlog due to the breakdown of our truck. It has been attended to since Sunday [March 2],” he said.
However, Ngala did not respond to Lowvelder’s questions regarding why the large amount of rubbish was still there two days later when We Care 4 Nelspruit had cleaned it up.