Residents across several Johannesburg suburbs are raising concerns over mounting rubbish as refuse collection delays continue, with ward councillors questioning the reasons behind what appears to be a citywide service delivery problem.

Complaints have emerged from areas including Sandhurst, Hyde Park, Bryanston, Morningside and parts of Sandton, where residents said household refuse has not been collected for days, and in some cases, weeks.

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Ward 91 councillor Andrew Stewart said the issue appears to be much broader than isolated operational challenges.

“It is starting to become quite broad now. We have heard there are issues with the city’s fuel contract, which not only impacts Pikitup,” Stewart said.

He said residents and councillors have received different explanations for the delays, including staff retirements, temporary workers refusing to work until they are permanently employed, disruptions caused by the June 30 marches, and more recently, reports of fuel shortages.

“How can something like that be impacting on a citywide scale? It doesn’t make sense. We’re not getting proper feedback to explain the problem, and it looks like it’s just getting worse and worse.”

Stewart added that councillors are calling on Pikitup to issue a detailed public statement explaining the cause of the disruptions, how the backlog will be addressed, and when normal services are expected to resume.

“We need a proper explanation. What is causing the problem? What is the fix? And roughly what sort of timeframes are we dealing with until the service returns to normal?”

He also raised concerns over the apparent breakdown of recycling services.

“They are not doing recycling anymore. Residents are told someone will contact them or that collections will happen, but they don’t. Even when a truck eventually arrives, entire streets are sometimes missed.”

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Ward 103 councillor Lynda Shackelford echoed these concerns, saying complaints have become increasingly widespread across different wards.

According to Shackelford, the various explanations given to residents still fail to explain why the disruptions are occurring across such a large portion of Johannesburg.

She said residents continue to report missed collections despite assurances that backlogs would be cleared.

Meanwhile, Ward 90 councillor Renate van Onselen shared an update from the Marlboro depot after receiving complaints from residents in Sandhurst and Hyde Park.

“Feedback from the depot last week was that due to the marches on June 30, they were running behind and were going to catch up their rounds over the weekend,” she said.

However, following further complaints on July 7, she said the latest information from the depot was that “we currently don’t have trucks to collect, they ran out of diesel,” and residents were advised to leave their bins outside because “we don’t know what will happen in the next days.”

Van Onselen criticised what she described as the city’s inability to effectively manage service delivery.

The ongoing delays have left residents frustrated, with overflowing bins raising concerns about hygiene, illegal dumping and the reliability of municipal services.

We sent a series of questions to Pikitup seeking clarity on the reported refuse collection delays, recycling service disruptions, staffing concerns, alleged fuel shortages, the extent of the current backlog, and the city’s recovery plan.

This article will be updated once Pikitup responds to our enquiries.

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