Wasting the Nation.indd - Groundwork

Chapter 6: Down at the dumpseThekwinieThekwini’s Department of Solid Waste (DSW) collects and disposes 1,266,220tonnes of waste a year, according to its 2004 Integrated Waste Management Plan. Ofthis, 117,917 is hazardous (H:h) waste collected from industry and disposed at twoprivate waste sites. 1,148,303 t/y is general waste, collected both from businesses andhouseholds.DSW itself collects waste from most areas that were formerly designated as white,Indian or coloured, with permanent workers providing the labour. In 1996, it inheritedresponsibility for township collection from the provincial authorities. In these blackAfrican and mostly working class areas, including Umlazi and KwaMashu, it hasappointed contractors to provide the service. The IWMP says this was done followingcommunity consultation and that it has “created an opportunity for emergingcontractors from the communities” [5-14]. It says there is verge-side collection in allareas where there is road access to houses. Where there is not, contractors take refusefrom people’s houses to a collection tip. It claims that all households in eThekwini areserviced with the exception of some remote rural areas and it is planning to extendservices to these areas as well. In the Kennedy Road shack settlement next to the City’scentral landfill, however, people say that their rubbish is not collected. This lack ofservice followed from the City’s decision that people should be removed to the cityperipheries. Conditions in Kennedy Road are described below.Waste is taken by the collection trucks directly to DSW’s general waste landfills. Theseare Bisasar Road in the city, Mariannhill to the west and a new landfill at Buffelsdraaito the north. La Mercy has recently been closed down while DSW plans to developLovu in the south.DSW also operates a number of ‘transfer stations’, mostly taking garden waste whichis then forwarded to the landfills. However, with the major city landfill due to closewithin the next decade, DSW is planning a major transfer station for general waste sothat waste can be transferred from collection trucks to long haul vehicles.Two ‘low hazard’ waste sites (H:h) operated by private corporations take industrialwaste, with some municipal general waste added as absorbent. They are BulBul Driveoperated by Wasteman and located in an Indian area close to the city, and Shongwenioperated by EnviroServ and located between a farming community and a black ruralvillage. There is no high hazard (H:H) site in KwaZulu-Natal and such waste istransported to sites in Gauteng and the Eastern Cape.- 138 - groundWork - Wasting the Nation