Wasting the Nation.indd - Groundwork

Chapter 6: Down at the dumpsCDM and local strugglesThe CDM deal covered LFG energy projects at the Bisasar Road, La Mercy andMariannhill landfills. It was proposed in 2002 and advertised at the World Summit onSustainable Development (WSSD) as a demonstration of South Africa’s commitmentto sustainable development. This was the first CDM project in Africa, according toErion et al [2008], and was promised $15 million start up capital by the World Bank’sPrototype Carbon Fund.The deal immediately linked local conflicts over Bisasar Road to global conflicts overcarbon trading and the workings of CDM in particular. Locally, the residents of ClareEstates had been fighting for the closure of the dump since the day it was opened in1980. The residents of the Kennedy Road shack settlement, however, saw the dumpas a source of livelihoods and were led to believe that the CDM project itself wouldsupport community upliftment.The smell from Clare EstateSajida Khan died of cancer in July 2007 at the age of 55. She lived in one of thebig houses at the top end of Kennedy Road immediately next to the dump. Havingmonitored the dump and documented the incidence of cancers in the local community,she had no doubt that her own cancer was the consequence of breathing toxic fumesfor 27 years, both from the dump itself and from a medical waste incinerator thatoperated on the site until 1997.Khan came to be recognised as the face of Clare Estate’s struggle to have the dumpclosed. It was not, however, just her fight. The original decision by Durban’s apartheidlocal council to locate the dump in an Indian area was clearly racist and residents ofClare Estates protested vigorously. Acting within the political fortifications of apartheid,the council could and did ignore these protests and opened the dump in 1980.The experience of living next to it was, if anything, worse than anticipated. The stenchwas unspeakable and the dust invasive. The campaign against the dump intensifiedand the city authorities were driven to promise that it would be closed in 1987. Asthey broke that promise, they responded to community protests with a new one: thedump would be closed in 1996 and rehabilitated as a recreational amenity. Thesepromises were repeated by political parties ahead of the first democratic electionsin 1994. However, consultations which Clare Estate residents thought were about- 144 - groundWork - Wasting the Nation