Councillor rules out skips for rubbish

A councillor has ruled out the reintroduction of skips, other metal bins and receptacles for household refuse in Alexandra.

Councillor Chris Mabunda said this at the piloting of rodent control equipment in Alexandra by the city’s department of environmental health. The equipment adds to other strategies such as rat cages, fumigation and the use of owls for eradicating rodents and other vermin.

Mabunda said skip containers and metal bins were withdrawn by council because some residents stole the bins for water storage and brewing beer at their rural homes.

“The skip containers which remain at clinics, public service centres and schools were stopped in residential areas after a foetus, a dead body and other undesirable things were found by Pikitup crews. This was traumatic for the crews,” he said.

This prompted council to introduce the use of plastic bags. “Residents should get used to [this and] simply leave them at designated spots at 7am and 2pm for daily [collection] by the crews.”

He said that despite this advice, some residents continued to dump the bags along the road after the afternoon crews had passed, resulting in dogs and goats tearing them open to scavenge for food. This attracted rodents at night. Mabunda added that the daily collection of refuse bags was also to encourage people to stop dumping kitchen waste in their backyards and along the roads.

“They were also introduced to encourage residents to participate in reducing self-induced health hazards in the process, promoting the efforts of environmental health teams and cleaning campaigns,” he said.

Mabunda also said some of the filth in Alex was attributed to residents in other affluent areas who, he said, hired rubble removers who dumped in the area illegally.

“The regional environmental health inspectors, Metro police and councillors should partner to change the attitudes of residents in the region to not regard Alex as a dumping area,” said Mabunda.