Meyersdal residents have spent over R20 000 to clean up and fight illegal dumping next to the R59 offramp and on Michelle Street.
The funds raised come from donations by the residents.
According to Meyersdal resident Bruna Haipel, locals first voiced their concerns over unlawful dumping on the area’s vacant land in 2016.
Following investigations, it was discovered that the Gauteng Roads Department owned this land and the land across the street from where the R59 onramp is.
In a few instances, SANRAL had put up no-dumping signs, but these were disregarded and torn down.
Regretfully, people kept dumping after that, and squatters came in. Allegedly, SANRAL did not respond to the residents’ attempts to communicate with them.
“I contacted Ronald Filander of the Gauteng Roads Department with requests to clean the area or fence it. This request was forwarded to various departments at SANRAL with no success,” she said.
Furthermore, she told the Alberton Record that since this is not council land, the council was unable to help, hence the situation had worsened.
“By July 2021, there had been no success with the roads department, so residents of Meyersdal who were on the Meyersdal vacant land WhatsApp group had no alternative but to join forces to improve the look of their suburb,” said Bruna.
The residents did several cleanups and raised a sizeable sum through donations and volunteer labour.
Due to the area’s deterioration, they decided to get contractors to move the illegal dumping and use it to fill a big hole in the land used by squatters.
“We obtained various quotes, and I thank the Meyersdal community for contributing generously,” Bruna expressed.
It took the contractor four days to level the land and remove unlawful dumping using a front-end loader, among other machinery, to complete the tasks. However, because there was still debris on the ground, they hired another group to do an additional cleanup.
“The area is still not perfect, but the entrance to Meyersdal looks much better,” Bruna concluded.
The Alberton Record will meet with some of the stakeholders in Meyersdal and try to get comments from the relevant departments.
