Wasting the Nation.indd - Groundwork

Chapter 4: The toxic cradle of productionThe competition in conspicuous consumption finds direct expression in the ritualisedauctioning out of spectacularly commercialised sports festivals. Each Olympics orsoccer World Cup competes with the last for extravagance as corporate sponsorsdemand yet bigger bangs for their advertising bucks. 61 When South Africa won thebid for 2010, the major cities started competing with each other for national fundingof ‘iconic’ stadiums and transport infrastructure projects, running up debts that willsettle on citizens into the future. Abahlali baseMjondolo comment that the KwaZulu-Natal Slums Bill “is an attempt to legalise a KZN Operation Murambatsvina beforethe World Cup in 2010”. 62 The resources mobilised for the event contrast starkly withthe repeated assertions that the state lacks capacity for ‘delivery’ to the poor.The sacrifice to miningMining is literally an extractive industry, clawing materials from the ground andgenerally impervious to the environment and people around the mines. Solid miningwaste is rarely managed beyond being piled into heaps or dams next to where theyhave been excavated and waste management textbooks pay little attention to it.In some places the task of managing mining waste is turned over to nature. For decades,if not centuries, it has been accepted practice to dump mining slurry in water coursesor the ocean, as illustrated by this ‘historical analysis’ given at a 1979 InternationalMine Drainage Symposium:Tailings disposal problems have faced the mining engineer for many years.Historically the easiest and most economical solution was to dischargetailings slurry by gravity to the nearest body of water and let nature takecare of the problem. However, as communities and farming activitieshave encroached on mining areas, and fishing industries and interestedindividuals have applied pressure to government regulatory bodies, theneed for properly engineered tailings disposal areas has become apparent.[Robinson and Toland 1979: 782].In fact, it was mostly the mines that ‘encroached’ on farming, fishing and communities,but the idea that the land was empty made its enclosure easy, especially if it belonged61 Following the Beijing spectacular, Olympic officials challenged London to beat it.62 AbM press release June 21, 2007. Murambatsvina refers to Zimbabwe’s operation to ‘clean out the dirt’ [seeChapter 1].- 88 - groundWork - Wasting the Nation