Rietfontein landfill site restored

This comes after Springs businessman Donald McCarthy has been complaining about the state of the facility.

“I have been using this facility for more than 15 years and it has never been in the state that it is,” he says.

He believes there are plenty of other people who use this disposal facility who would agree with him, however, he has says he has seen some improvement since he contacted the Addie.

According to Themba Gadebe, metro spokesman, a maintenance and operating contractor has been appointed at Rietfontein landfill site until June 30, 2017.

He says the contractor’s duties are to ensure that the site is operated and maintained in line with the minimum requirements as per the license issued by the Department of Water Affairs and Forestry.

However, when McCarthy visited the site in December he found heaps of waste scattered all over the area, with both the bins full and overflowing and the waste not being levelled, compacted and covered.

“Between the December 12 and 14, 2015, received and disposed waste wasn’t levelled, compacted and covered which led to the state of the site,” says Gadebe.

When the metro discussed the situation with the site operator he mentioned that they ran out of diesel and their supplier failed to deliver diesel as per their arrangement.

The diesel was only delivered on December 14 and only then could the clearing, levelling and compacting of the waste start.

Gadebe says the site was restored and operations were back to normal by December 18.

Between these two dates the skips were also not emptied as per the requirements, which was due to a broken truck that is still not repaired.

Contingency measures were made and a secondary truck were called out to come empty the skip bins.

“A site violation order has been issued to the site operator who was requested to solve the matter, however, the site was fully restored on December 18 and all the waste covered,” concludes Gadebe.