Wasting the Nation.indd - Groundwork

Chapter 6: Down at the dumpsBisasar RoadBisasar Road is said to be the biggest landfill in Africa. It is constructed in a valleyoff the Mgeni River as a series of steep terraces backing up to the hill top at the headof the valley. At its foot is the Springfield estate holding big bulk retail stores. This isprime flat land turned over to development following the removal of the Indian shacksettlement of Tin Town in 1964. On the fenceline of Bisasar is the Kennedy Roadshack settlement. It houses some 6,000 people in tightly packed shacks made of wood,corrugated iron, tarpaulins and plastic sheeting. Higher up the road is the beginning ofClare Estate, a working class Indian neighbourhood with a fringe of wealthier familieswho found that the houses they had bought for a view of the sea were to be on thefenceline of the expanding dump.The calculus of costBisasar now takes up to 5,000 tonnes of rubbish delivered by around 1,000 vehiclesevery working day. The average is 3,800 t per working day or 2,300 t/d for the fullweek. Larger vehicles, including municipal waste compactor trucks, grind up the hillto deliver their load directly to the work face. Smaller vehicles off load on the recyclingpad at the bottom of the waste terraces. Some of this waste is sorted for recycling, butthe bulk is scooped up by giant front end loaders onto tipper trucks which circulateendlessly up and down between the pad and the working face. Water trucks alsocirculate in what appears a vain attempt to suppress the dust kicked up by the heavytraffic. At the face, the bulldozers and heavy steel-wheeled compactors work over thewaste, pushing it in place and rolling it to save air-space. At the end of the workingday, the cover material is taken to the work face. This is a combination of soil andgarden waste which has been ground up by the ‘wood hog’, another large and noisymachine located on the recycling pad.This is an energy intensive process. Fuel and vehicles account for some 70% of thelandfill’s operating costs. Transport takes a similar proportion of the budget of theentire waste system and costs are rising with the rising fuel price. On landfill managerLogan Moodley’s estimate, it now costs around R9 to carry one tonne one kilometre,up from R6 a year ago. 8888 Moodley was interviewed in May. The volatility of the oil price and the Rand may have altered this estimate,or more likely, made any estimation of cost highly uncertain.Wasting the Nation - groundWork - 139 -