Speaking at a lekgotla hosted by Mayor Parks Tau, Magasa said there was a need for innovative and sustainable waste management solutions for Johannesburg. As part of this solution, Pikitup had taken delivery of R90 million worth of equipment. “The new gear includes six trucks with 12 recycling bin trailers for use at major events in under-serviced areas, as well as an assortment of caged trucks, garden or wood chippers and machines used for crushing building rubble,” Magasa said.
The municipal-owned utility serves 17 000 commercial businesses and about 3.2 million residents, and is responsible for the keeping clean of 9 000km of roads, and the general upkeep of an area 1 625km2 in size. It collects and disposes of more than 6 000 tons of waste a day. Magasa said the city could potentially run out of available landfill space within the next eight years, and warned that failure to act individually as well as collectively could lead to dire consequences in the future.
“The time had now come for residents to please join the conversation,” she said. “It is essential for the various role players in the waste management value chain to work closely together to tackle issues related to waste management.”
And this included illegal dumping which chairman of Pikitup’s board operations committee, Washington Nyabeze said should be eliminated completely. “Pikitup is determined to take the whole city to level-one cleanliness,” he said. “The city is moving, the city is at work.”
