Wasting the Nation.indd - Groundwork

Chapter 6: Down at the dumpsRedelinghuys confirms that the municipality’s plan is to level these old burrow pitsand cap them to stop infiltration of rain. A participatory process with local residentsis to decide on an acceptable end use and then rehabilitate these stretches to thatpurpose. But the problem remains. “People see there is waste there, so they bringmore. Sometimes they bring even dead dogs. When the wind turns, I get a smell,” saysDitheko.A few houses away, residents have made a community garden at the edge of the areapreviously filled in for the RDP housing development. They say a lot of rubbish cameup when they dug the garden. They found medical waste including old syringes andblood bags at a depth of no more than two blades of the spade. Further on, a drainleads from Zone 20 directly towards the Golden Highway. As with the ditch behind theIscor hostel, this one also excavates old rubbish and invites more informal dumping.Residents say it is infested with rats as well as choked with rubbish. Following hardrain, water dams up to form pools. They are particularly concerned that their childrenthen swim in the contaminated water.BoitshepiThe Boitshepi dump towers over the townships of Boipatong and Tshepiso – hencethe name. To the north, there are a number of firms that produce steel drums, tins,nails and fencing. Their slag is used as daily cover. To the south, there is an open areathrough which the Leeuspruit flows. The stream flows from Mittal Steel’s grounds andis already polluted from there. It runs in a wetland through Boipatong to Tshepiso andon to Sharpeville. The residents of these townships are not only exposed to industrialpollution, but also to the continued operation of the dodgy dump above them.Boitshepi is thought to originate from the late 1960s. According to Redelinghuys, itstarted as a slagheap for Cape Gate. By the mid-1980s, it had become “an informaldumping site controlled by the municipality”. Boitshepi’s managers were slow torespond to the minimum requirements. When the second edition was published in1998, the municipality privatised management of the dump and tasked the contractorto upgrade it to permittable legal status. By 2002, there was still no control over whatindustries and business dumped there. The contract was then given to Envirofill whostill manages it. Envirofill has established entry controls, including a weighbridge,but the dump itself is scarcely upgraded. An EIA has now (2008) been initiated toobtain a ‘permit for closure’. It seems that actual closure will probably be about the- 162 - groundWork - Wasting the Nation