Wasting the Nation.indd - Groundwork
Wasting the Nation.indd - Groundwork
Wasting the Nation.indd - Groundwork
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Chapter 5: Modernising municipal wasteIn practice, <strong>the</strong> minimum requirements are often not met. As a result of <strong>the</strong> history ofgross neglect and <strong>the</strong> low priority and consequent under funding of waste management,<strong>the</strong> situation on <strong>the</strong> ground is far from <strong>the</strong> <strong>the</strong>ory. Many municipal dumps are of suchdesign that <strong>the</strong>y cannot be permitted under <strong>the</strong> minimum requirements. Moreover,having a permit is no indication of being in compliance. According to DEAT [2007a],<strong>the</strong>re are over 2,000 municipal waste facilities of which only 530 are permitted. Thisdoes not include <strong>the</strong> estimated 15,000 unrecorded communal sites in rural areas.Waste managers generally refer to permitted dumps as ‘landfills’, while un-permittedones are called ‘dumps’. Things are not so clear cut, however. Many permitted sitesare in fact dumps that have been ‘permitted for closure’. This is a way of dealing with<strong>the</strong> legacy of neglect. It brings dumps which have no hope of meeting <strong>the</strong> minimumrequirements within <strong>the</strong> legal regulatory system and sets <strong>the</strong> terms for closing <strong>the</strong>m.Until closure, however, it legalises <strong>the</strong> operation and creates <strong>the</strong> conditions fornegotiated non-compliance. Ecological modernisation is nothing if not flexible and itseems that ‘closure’ could be negotiated into a lengthy process.The distance between <strong>the</strong>ory and practice is clearly illustrated in <strong>the</strong> case studies below.Some of <strong>the</strong> common issues include:- Dumps are not isolated from <strong>the</strong> environment by liners and have ei<strong>the</strong>rrudimentary or no leachate collection, no leachate treatment and no gasga<strong>the</strong>ring. Landfills are frequently built on top of old dumps. The landfillis lined but <strong>the</strong> old dump moulders beneath it. Leachate and gas ga<strong>the</strong>ringsystems in <strong>the</strong> landfill part may or may not be well maintained.- Managers do not know what is in <strong>the</strong> waste body <strong>the</strong>y are responsible for as<strong>the</strong>re are few historical records. Even after permitting, landfill records are notnecessarily well-kept.- Landfills and some dumps have weighbridges. Better managed dumps mostlyrely on estimates of waste quantities by sight while o<strong>the</strong>rs do not monitorincoming waste.- Inspection of incoming waste is similarly uneven and generally uncertain.Sampling waste is notoriously difficult while smuggling hazardous wasteunder cover of general waste is easy. In addition, neighbours suspect landfillmanagement of complicity in allowing illegal waste dumping while <strong>the</strong>‘de-listing’ of hazardous waste blurs <strong>the</strong> lines between what is allowed ordisallowed.- 134 - groundWork - <strong>Wasting</strong> <strong>the</strong> <strong>Nation</strong>