Quarry Road residents educated on waste management

THE Department of Water and Sanitation convenes and acts as a secretariat for the Lower Umgeni Catchment Management Forum (CMF).

Durban Green Corridor (DGC), represented by Nompilo Buthelezi, hosted a visit of the CMF members to their waste management and recycling project at the Quarry Road West Informal Settlement, near the confluence of the Palmiet and Umgeni Rivers.

Buthelezi said the DGC’s role in the project is to provide community mobilisation and education around waste management and to intercept solid waste in the river through litter booms and traps.

“Project partner Trashback is driving the recycling aspect, starting with 12 community-based recyclers and linking them to the recycling value chain.”

“Each household has been given recyclable bags for getting their waste to the skips provided at the settlement entrance. Trashback is, as an interim measure, contracting a service provider to remove the unrecyclable waste from the skips to landfill,” said Buthelezi

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Thembi Ngubo from Trashback said, “Durban people don’t know the value of Polyethylene terephthalate PET. PET is a type of plastic used in making plastic
water bottles (among many other things).

“In Gauteng, the price of recycled PET is around R4, whereas in Durban it is only R1.20. In Gauteng, waste recycling collectors would have collected all the PET from the river and the community open areas.”

The DGC has funding from Coca-Cola Beverages South Africa (CCBSA), and this pilot phase is scheduled to run for 1 year, through to April 2019. The project is also receiving technical assistance from Durbanites Against Plastic Pollution (DAPP).

CAPTION: Kuben Samie observes the mismanaged waste that gets trapped on a weekly basis upstream of a concrete pipe in the in the Palmiet River at the Quarry Road West Informal Settlement.

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