THE Mtubatuba Municipality is on a mission to keep its surroundings clean, but faces problems of uncontrolled illegal dumping.
Being branded the dirtiest municipality in the Mkhanyakude District for some time, Mtubatuba has decided to turn things around and be counted amongst the cleanest municipalities in the province.
To find solutions to its waste management challenges, the municipality held a ‘Mtubatuba clean town summit’ on Thursday at the Protea Hotel Umfolozi.
‘As a gateway to the Isimangaliso World Heritage Site, Mtuba paints a bleak picture for tourists travelling through and this is bad news for local tourism,’ said Department of Environmental Affairs and Agriculture representative KP Mathenjwa.
The municipality has recently established a waste management unit to ensure the issues of waste disposal are dealt with effectively.
‘It is high time we also followed the COP 17 resolutions to guarantee our communities a clean environment; therefore we have to take action,’ said one of the speakers.
The municipality currently has two waste disposal sites, at St Lucia and Northdale, which are both strictly speaking illegal dumping sites.
The St Lucia site is going to be closed down soon, leaving the municipality with the daunting task of having to find a replacement.
‘As a newly-formed unit, waste management is inviting all stakeholders to be part of the municipality’s mission to make Mtuba a clean town,’ said waste management officer, KV Mpungose.
Mayor MR Ntuli said, ‘We need to source funding to finance waste management challenges facing our municipality.’
The summit took a resolution to host more talks involving all stakeholders, so tangible solutions to the problems of illegal dumping can be found.
