Wasting the Nation.indd - Groundwork

Chapter 1: Dust and AshesGovernment failed to do even that and now has not allocated any money to completethe programme.” 3Meanwhile, poorly maintained sewage systems are breaking down across the country.There are nearly 1,000 municipal sewage works and 70% are close to collapse. Thecrisis is not confined to small towns like Delmas where, in 2005, 600 people contractedtyphoid and five died of it while more than 3,000 suffered from diarrhoea. In 2007/8,a DWAF study found that drinking water in 28 Western Cape municipalities wascontaminated by faecal matter. In the Vaal Triangle, raw sewage spills from dysfunctionalsewage works into streams used by local women for washing clothes and by children toswim in. Ultimately, it drains into the Vaal River. In December 2007, thousands of fishturned belly up in Durban Bay following a sewage leak. In April 2008, it was reportedthat 78 children died from diarrhoea in the Ukhahlamba district of the Eastern Capebecause people’s water was contaminated by sewage. The municipality did nothinguntil the deaths were made public. The provincial government then noted other factors“including poverty, poor service delivery, environmental health and human resource‘challenges’”. 4 It is indeed poor people who die. Yet, when government cites poverty asa cause, the sub-text seems to be that poor people’s lives are less valuable.Sewage sludge, produced by conventional sewage works, is reckoned to constitutearound 2% of the total waste stream. It is toxic partly because people themselvescarry a high ‘body burden’ from substances in food and in their environments, partlybecause it is subsequently contaminated with industrial effluent, and partly becauseof the method of treatment. Recent research found that, except in the larger cities,many “plant managers didn’t really care where they put the sludge, as long as it isdisposed of” [Herselman et al 2005: ix]. Some is sold to farmers but the benefits evenof uncontaminated manure turn toxic if it is spread too thick. Most is dumped on‘sacrificial land’ or trenched at landfills.Waste management is not even mentioned in the Ten Year Review and is yet tobe mentioned in the President’s annual State of the Nation address. In terms ofgovernment’s overall policy priority, it remains the invisible industry. Services havebeen expanded in black urban areas but research carried out in 2003 for SAMWUshowed that “[w]ealthy and working-class areas did not receive the same quality of3 SAMWU Media Release, February 20, 2008.4 Water contamination cited in E Cape child deaths, Sapa, April 30, 2008.- 16 - groundWork - Wasting the Nation