Letter: Actonville is a trash heap
A never-ending scale of waste is enveloping the entire landscape, said the writer.
Farouk Araie writes:
Actonville and its immediate neighbours have become a trash heap where residents continue to dump waste on a never-ending scale enveloping the entire landscape.
Dirt and waste are infused with undesirable connotations, which can be deeply hurtful.
To be connected with dirt is to lose respectability, and to lose respectability is to lose class status.
Characteristics of offenders include residents, contractors, and waste removers.
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The illegal dumping of both industrial and household waste has become a huge environmental problem as blatant evidence of the practice in the form of individuals throwing their trash in streets releasing toxic trash into the environment.
Illegal dumping can impede the natural runoff of water during heavy rain as we enter seasonal summer downpours and the garbage is a horrible eyesore.
Should animals consume waste from illegal dumpsites it can cause health complications and even death.
Garbage dumped in areas accessible to the public can result in residents being exposed to health and injury risks.
Putrid piles of garbage are all around the affected neighbourhood, the salient factors are growth, poor urban planning, and political dysfunction.
Garbage in the streets is a public health threat, serving as prime habitat for rodents and mosquitoes that can spread deadly diseases and one cannot avoid the overwhelming stench the garbage generates.
This apocalyptic landscape has become common in these neighbourhoods as the garbage crisis is getting more profound, given the immensity of the illegal dumping of trash in Actonville and Benoni.
Vandalism and the dismantling of power poles in Actonville clearly illustrate that our society has been propelled into a decadent level where civility, sanity, and rule of law cease to exist.
The immense degradation of a once pristine environment is a grim reminder that progress and equality will never be achieved if we resort to dismembering our inner cities in an orgy of pillage and filthy lucre.
The quality of life and progress will suffer immensely by such atrocious behaviour. Is this our legacy for the next generation?
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