The Reeds dumping site on a portion of land near the Rietspruit River has been a point of contention for local residents.
The site is also being used by informal waste pickers for recycling the waste the surrounding Centurion communities generate.
One resident, Khanyisile Thonga, saw the opportunity and service that these pickers performed and decided to lend her expertise by creating The Recycling Bank.
In 2021, Rekord spoke to Thonga about her plans.
“I saw how badly informal waste pickers got treated,” she told Rekord at the time.
“I thought that a system needed to be put in place that could control the criminal element. I thought if residents knew who collected their waste, they would be more amenable to assist informal waste collectors to make a living.”
Speaking to Rekord last week at the sorting site, she said that the project had grown since then.
She found someone who was working with the pickers, who mentored her and helped her identify the spaces she could work with.
In 2021, she gathered some of the waste pickers together and formed a group to collect recyclables from The Reeds and Rooihuiskraal.
She now buys sorted recyclables from all across Centurion, Moreleta Park, Midrand, and in other places in Gauteng.
“What I buy depends on what makes business sense at the time. Right now, a lot of the material isn’t that valuable. A lot of pickers have left and gone into construction.
“A lot of these guys are foreigners, mainly from Lesotho,” she explained.
“Many of them come here for construction jobs, and when the projects end, they come back to picking.”
What pickers can make depends on the time of the year, and factors such as load-shedding.
“When electricity is not sufficient, the recycling plants have to slow down so they can’t manufacture or buy the volume that they usually can.
“When mills are full, they drop the prices, and so there is less incentive to have people go out picking.”
She said that the site was currently at its slowest.
“Every site has its main buyer. The stuff is quite profitable, but it needs that knowledge and experience, you can’t just start.
“Some sites don’t have buyers. They call the recycling companies directly, who come to pick up the material.”
The site is located on privately owned land, which has an informal settlement known as Vuilduis or Masango settlement.
Residents who live in the settlement told Rekord that in May, letters demanding that they vacate the premises were distributed to the residents.
Rekord has seen the letters but did not receive a response from the lawyers associated with the letters.
This is also not the first time that the residents were served with such papers.
In June 2018, residents said that they were served with similar papers, but that nothing further came of them.
“[This] would affect the pickers badly,” said Thonga.
“They would have to find another place to put everything. It is also convenient for them because they also stay here.
“I don’t think it will work.”
Thonga said that the industry was in dire need of regulations or a regulatory body.
“I think in terms of this type of job where it is really primary labour, nobody represents these people.
“Everyone is all for recycling, but nobody wants to do anything to help.”
One of the pickers, Fidelity Ralikhute told Rekord that he has been working in the area since 2018.
He said that picking and sorting were his main sources of income and that relocating would mean that they would have to start from scratch.
“We already fight for bins, there is competition. So if we go to a new place, it will be a problem.
“It is hard work. We have to travel a long distance. Each area has a different day, and we need to get there, sort through the bins, and get it back here in one day.”
It is also dangerous work.
Elizabeth Makopela said that her husband was hit by a car in a hit-and-run in December 2023.
Just two weeks ago, another picker was hit by a car in Midrand. The ongoing fires had also cost them dearly.
“I had the PET bottles that I was collecting since November 2022.
“Then in August 2023, the fire got all of my stock burnt. That was about R12 000 down the drain,” said Makopela.
The pickers explained that they had no security, with no pension, and if they got injured, they would lose all their income with no other backup.
Not all residents of the informal settlement agree that the site should be used in the way that it is.
A resident, who did not want to be named for fear of victimisation, said the illegal rubbish dump had made their community less safe.
He explained that the residents had previously cleared a space to be used by taxis, and regularly cleaned up their community, but now the taxi space had become an illegal dump.
He added that they can no longer keep up with cleaning their community.
The community had been growing at an alarming rate: an estimated 800 people in 2023 had grown to over 1 000 this year.
He claimed that the business attracted migrant labourers and criminals who were allegedly conducting illegal sand mining, and processing copper from stolen cables.
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