Other suburbs suffer following Fairlands dump closure
Commitment was made that the Panorama dump would be open before the Fairlands dump was closed.
Kathy Taylor shares concerns from nearby suburbs after the dump’s closure:
The picture painted by residents in the Fairland area regarding the dumping site and the subsequent close of the dump is rather one-sided and many of the facts have not been taken into account.
Firstly, every area should be responsible for its own refuse site. It’s grossly unfair on neighbouring communities like Parkhurst, Greenside and Emmarentia to have to deal with refuse generated in Fairland because Fairland residents do not want to deal with it or as it was put is simply an ‘eyesore’. Due to this the Parkhurst/Greenside dumping ground is under tremendous pressure to handle the Fairland’s refuse as well as their own areas, for example.
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Traffic around the said dump is a nightmare because of the influx from the Fairland area.
Then there are the contractors, like us who have serviced the area for more than 30 years and now very much break even rather than show a profit, which will lead either to job losses or they will have to carry the cost of these changes over to the clients in the Fairland area.
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They have to offload at Parkhurst/Greenside which is not around the corner. That is, when the dump is not full and they are not turned away or told to move on to Melrose or Norwood. Pikitup generally makes a very poor job of keeping the gates of these two dumps open even when the Fairland dump was open (Melrose has been closed for 4 days due to an influx and no available vehicles), so to suggest that these dumps must solve Fairland residents problems is completely unrealistic.
The implications of this one dump closing are far-reaching. Contractors that work in the Fairland area now constantly have to deal with the abuse of the staff at the other dumps because they are coming from Fairlands. Pikitup employees do not want them to offload from Fairlands.
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A commitment was made that the Panorama dump would be open before the Fairlands dump was closed. This has not happened. It is an inevitability that illegal dumping is going to take place sooner rather than later. This is just another gap that has been created for Pikitup not to perform its duties properly.
Then there is the matter of the vagrants. They are not unique to the Fairland area. Every single area has vagrants and has to deal with the problems mentioned in the article. Pushing them all out of the Fairlands area will only cause more problems for neighbouring areas. Surely none of these people want to sleep on the street. This is a much deeper problem than just shuffling vagrants from one area to another. Shutting the local refuse dump down is not going to solve these problems.
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In response to accusations contained in the letter, spokesperson for Pikitup Anthony Selepe said, “If you take garden waste to other garden waste site there should be no problem. If you go to a landfill site you will need to be in possession of a licence to deposit there.”
He asks for concerns to be raised with Pikitup should residents feel they are being harassed.
