A MOST dubious award has been presented to the Big Five False Bay Municipality.
Civil rights watchdog AfriForum has handed it a floating ‘trophy’ for having ‘the most sloppy rubbish dump’.
This follows an audit of the Hluhluwe rubbish dump, which found that the site did not comply with any of the minimum legal requirements.
The rubbish dump was audited according to minimum requirements as set out in the National Environmental Management: Waste Act (No. 59 of 2008).
‘AfriForum reworked these requirements into 25 questions and subsequently uses these questions to perform the rubbish dump audit,’ the group said in a media release.
Students who are part of AfriForum’s 2016 internship programme performed the audit in cooperation with members of the local branch structures and together audited six rubbish dumps in the region.
Elana Retief, intern and spokesperson at AfriForum, says the condition of the site is the worst in the entire region.
‘The mismanagement of the rubbish dump presents big safety risks to humans and the environment.’
Retief furthermore said the municipality is failing in its duty to protect the environment.
However, an undertaking was given to give urgent attention to the problem.
‘The possibility of a collective community project is also being investigated.
‘AfriForum welcomes the positive attitude of the municipality to find a solution to the problem,’ says René Reichel, also an intern.
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