BETHAL – With Govan Mbeki Municipality’s employees still without the proper personal protective equipment (PPE), residents have been forced to remove their own refuse, but at what cost?
Ridge Times paid a visit to Bethal’s landfill site which seemed to be full to the brim, so much so that refuse and rubble were strewn along the sides of the road towards Standerton.
The sad reality of this horrendous sight is the danger that actually lurks inside the refuse dump area. When wanting to enter the dumping site, one fears intimidation and damage to your vehicle because of the overwhelming number of vagrants jumping onto vehicles.
Once inside, you can see piles of carcasses scattered around the landfill site, seemingly dumped there by local butchers.
AfriForum recently did a study on the compliance and non-compliance with minimum requirements for landfill sites per province. Bethal rubbish dump obtained a sad five percent compliance rate.
The audit consists of a list of 33 questions that measure the minimum requirements for landfill sites in South Africa and includes factors such as access control, fires, medical waste, fencing, rehabilitation etc.
A landfill site must obtain at least 80 percent to comply with legislation.
According to Mr Bronwen Pretorius, AfriForum’s District Coordinator for the Highveld, most of the landfill sites in Mpumalanga are in a shameful state, which can be attributed mainly to a lack of municipal accountability.
Mr Pretorius said the most common problems AfriForum identified during the audit were, among others, the absence of waste management licences, and the total mismanagement of sites.
“AfriForum branches will exercise pressure on authorities in their areas to establish waste monitoring committees to improve the waste management process. These committees will consist of municipalities and interested parties wanting to improve waste management in a particular town.”
AfriForum will arrange a meeting with Barbara Creecy, Minister of Environmental Affairs, to identify sites that need to be restored.
The audit report will also be submitted to the Green Scorpions for further investigation and action against non-compliant municipalities.
“AfriForum will continuously monitor the process to ensure that landfill sites are improved to reach the required standards,” said Mr Pretorius.
Govan Mbeki Municipality’s management said the municipality is currently attending to the challenge of ensuring that the landfill site must be properly secured to deal with access control.
“Owing to the lack of fencing and guarded gates in the Bethal landfill site, access control remains a challenge.
“Notwithstanding this, GMM continues to maintain the site with the available resources and during the site verification of 1 July, the fleet on site was operational.
“It should be noted that the GMM Law Enforcement Officers are from time to time assigned to enforce the municipal by-laws relating to illegal dumping.
“All municipal landfill sites receive carcasses and upon disposal, the same should be covered immediately with waste or soil. Disposal of carcasses during working hours is normally attended as and when they occur.”
Govan Mbeki Municipality management also said due to the Covid-19 lockdown, the delivery of service parts for compactor trucks, as well as PPE has been very slow.
“To that end, refuse removal services have been affected. The GMM management is attending to this matter as the PPE has already been procured and must be delivered promptly.”
