Dirty city centre a cause for concern

The Boksburg CBD is among the Ekurhuleni city centres battling the scourge of littering and illegal dumping, which constantly infect the streets and beauty spots.

It is also giving the community and those running businesses in the area some cause for concern.

Many residents and people visiting the CBD complained that they are constantly confronted with unpleasant odour and an enormous volume of filth, which serve as breeding places for rodents, and are fire hazards.

Even though most of the streets in the CBD have rubbish bins, the area remains an eyesore with sights of trash, from casual litter to deliberate illegal dumping outside the residential areas.

Waste is scattered on roadsides outside buildings and public spaces in almost all the streets in the area.

Apart from dealing with residents tossing rubbish in the streets, reputable businesses paying their rates and taxes are also forced to put up with men spotted urinating along the walls of the buildings.

Greater effort required to tackle befouled city centre

Ward 32 Clr Marius de Vos said he believes the less-frequent rubbish collection, compounds the problem.

“It appears the city centre generates more waste than can be collected a day.

“Municipal workers collect waste here, but within hours after collections, the bins are overflowing, the area is strewn with litter and the uncollected rubbish spill out of bins and blows around, attracting even more litter.

“This is a clear indication that bins for public use are relatively not enough, and that litter collection is less frequent,” said de Vos.

De Vos called on all citizens to help keep the city centre free of litter by doing away with the culture of tossing any rubbish on the streets and dumping wastes on the roadsides.

He, however, stressed that this must be backed up by public resources, such as frequent waste collections from collection lorries and enough litter bins.

“What is required is greater effort by both government and ordinary citizens to tackle the scourge of littering and illegal dumping in the city.”

Business owners’ view

To find out mores about the problem and its root cause, the Advertiser spoke to people who are in and about the CBD on a daily basis – business owners in this case.

A general dealer, who chose to remain anonymous and whose business is situated in Market Street, said: “A lot of youngsters come with equipment to sell, and whatever they don’t manage to sell they throw away, which causes the mess.

“Recently, a group of guys were grinding a shell of a car in front of my shop and I had to approach them to tell them that they can’t do such here, it’s not an industrial area.

“Some guys wanted to stab each other because they were fighting for boxes to sell. I had a lady who wanted to come in my shop, drive away because she said it looks dangerous, so it also affects business,” explained the dealer, whose shop is just over 100 years old.

Quizzed on other reasons that contribute to the reckless dumping in the CBD, the shop owner said shop keepers do not have a specific place where they can throw away waste, but he did acknowledge that the council does a good job in ensuring that the area is cleaned.

Another businessman, whose trade is along Leeuwpoort Street, added: “Normal cleaning done by the council is done quite often. Thorough cleaning, however, has not been done in over five months.

“The biggest problem for me is the bottles which are used for recycling. Look, I have no problem with the guys who recycle because like me, they are trying to make that little income, but they need direction. They need to be guided in how to properly run the business.

“The government can come in by maybe providing central areas where they can do their job because it gets quite messy.

“However, it’s not just general people who are responsible for the mess; drivers also throw their rubbish out their windows all the time.”

Quizzed on what businesses can do to help the situation and not just rely on the government, he explained: “I take my rubbish at the end of a working day and throw it away at a dumping area.

“Signs can also be put up to warn people of illegal dumping as there are not enough signs here.”

Metro’s response

Metro spokesperson Themba Gadebe said some of the various vacant lots throughout the Boksburg CBD are targeted by vagrants, informal recyclers, businesses and residents who dump excess refuse and rubble illegally.

Gadebe said certain street corners have also been identified as dumping hot spots and they have been made aware that polluters dump their refuse waste in those areas after hours.

“The process of addressing cleanliness in Boksburg was discussed at management level, and a business plan was submitted to address the cleanliness in all Boksburg CBDs, both in the short and long term.

“The City of Ekurhuleni supports clean-up campaigns by means of providing certain equipment should a timeous request be submitted to the Waste Management Division.

“Until such time that the business plan for the CBDs are implemented, the Waste Management Division renders litter picking services in the CBDs.”

Gadebe highlighted that illegal dumping at vacant lots in the Boksburg CBD are removed regularly, but as result of the ill-discipline of the inhabitants in the immediate vicinity the situation returns to a state of disarray within a day or two.

“The cleanliness of the City is not the sole responsibility of council, all residents and businesses have a civil responsibility toward the cleanliness of the environment we live in.

“Business and residents should refrain from littering and dumping refuse illegally and should place out refuse only on the day of refuse removal,” Gadebe said.

Environmentalists from Wildlife and Environment Society of South Africa (WESSA) Lameez Eksteen and Cindy-Lee Cloete weighed in on the topic to highlight some of the negative impact of illegal dumping.

According to Eksteen, illegal dumping leads to pollution of the surrounding environment and this could include hazardous toxins which seep through the soil, affecting the quality of ground water.

“Dumping sites attract rodents which carry harmful diseases. Children often play close to these sites and are exposed to this health hazard.

“Municipalities spend a large portion of their annual budget on cleaning up illegal dump sites whereas they can spend the money on more pertinent service delivery initiatives,” Eksteen said.

Cloete further highlighted that recycling should not be practised in isolation.

“If we want to make a real impact we should implement the three Rs in our households, schools or workplaces.

“These stand for reduce, reuse and recycle. Firstly, we should reduce the amount of waste we produce, this means buying less products or buying products which doesn’t have unnecessary additional packaging.”

When it comes to reusing, Cloete said people shouldn’t throw away items like glass jars, plastic containers, newspaper, clothes, towel and most importantly, plastic bags after one use.

She further highlighted that it is important for people to separate waste at homes, schools or workplaces and allow it to be recycled.

“The three Rs helps us reduce our carbon footprint, lessen the impact of waste of our environment and decreases the pressure on raw materials to produce new products,” Cloete said.

Eksteen shared that if government can strengthen community education and strictly implement the polluter pays principal by paying fines for dumping is one deterrent to prevent illegal dumping.

The importance of waste pickers

Waste picker Olwethu Ntamo, who lives and works in Farrar Park, under the N17 Rondebult off-ramp bridge, said: “I do this for survival. I gather waste from public spaces and sort the materials out under the bridge to sell for recycling in Boksburg North.

“I’m proud to say that the money I’m making through waste piking is sufficient and nobody is accusing me of stealing,” said Ntamo.

It takes him about five days to put the materials together to sell.

Ntamo said he will keep his working space clean, but he is in need of large recycling bags.

Anybody who would like to assist in this regard may contact Antoinette on 061 050 5183.

According to the owner of a local recycling business, Mandla Nkosi, waste picking offers significant ecological, economic and social benefits.

“The country would be messy without waste pickers. By gathering garbage from public spaces, waste pickers contribute to the cleanliness of the city,” said Nkosi.

“They should rather be referred to as “amathandamvelo” or “reclaimers” as it is a better description of the important work they do.”

He added that recycling is extremely important as waste has a negative impact on the natural environment.Ward 32 Clr Marius de Vos, however, believes that the majority of waste pickers are in fact contributing to littering.

“Unfortunately, they will leave the waste they can’t sell at the area where they sort it out. It then piles up until it eventually becomes a rubbish dump,” said de Vos.

“Home owners should be encouraged to separate their paper and plastic waste out at source. Waste pickers can then just take the items that they need.