JOBURG SOUTH – The City of Johannesburg and Pikitup have introduced waste separation at source, garden dumping sites and composting plants to reduce environmental pollution that causes greenhouse gases.
In addition, the city has successfully implemented two landfill gas-to-energy projects, one at the Robinson Deep landfill site and the other at Marie Louise.
With these projects, landfill gas is extracted, combusted and flared as carbon dioxide to generate electricity.
Soon a total of 19MW of electricity will be generated from five landfill sites, which could be used by about 12 500 middle-income households.
The landfill gas-to-energy projects minimise environmental damage by reducing methane emissions. Executive Mayor Mpho Tau said Pikitup’s waste separation at source project encourages residents to separate their waste; paper goes into orange bags and recyclables like bottles and cans in colourless bags.
To date, 264 889 households are participating in the waste separation at source project. Tshepo Dlamini, City of Johannesburg consultant, said there are plans to roll out this project to other areas; it will be available all over Johannesburg eventually.
