Lack of bags scupper recycling efforts
eThekwini head of communications, Tozi Mthethwa, confirmed last week that the city has recently experienced a currently delay in the supply of the orange recycling bags.
HUNDREDS of homes across the city have not been receiving their orange plastic bags that make recycling in Durban possible. And as a result tons of potentially recyclable material have been making their way to landfill sites.
eThekwini head of communications, Tozi Mthethwa, confirmed last week that the city has recently experienced a delay in the supply of the orange recycling bags.
Mthethwa said the current delay was “largely due to the change in contractors manufacturing the bags. The supply of raw materials was behind schedule resulting in insufficient bags coming off the production line.”
“We are therefore experiencing a backlog in deliveries of the bags to households. The Municipality is working hard to resolve the situation and restore the delivery of bags to all areas. Currently bags are being distributed to households as they come out of production,” she added.
In light of the recycling disaster, we caught up with local recycling entrepreneur, Nkosentsha Shezi, who is determined to tackle the scourge of garbage in Durban, while at the same time providing a steady income for himself and other members of his community.
According to Shezi, tons of recyclable martial are making their way to landfill sites on a daily basis.
What’s more, he said he fears that without the proper recycling bags even more community members will simply toss out tons more.
“At the Springfield site we see tons of metal, paper, glass and even plastic being tossed away every day. We also see that people often toss away things that they could be selling or donating, such as old filing cabinets. In these cases people should think twice about ways in which they could recycle these items.
The passionate environmentalist said he soon hopes to roll out his own coloured recycling bags so that he can begin to facilitate more recycling across Durban.
“My dream is to eventually tackle a whole street at a time. So, that we can regularly drive down streets collecting these bags from dozens of recycling homes,” he said.
Contact Shezi via e-mail on envirobuddies1@gmail.com.
