Excuses from BCM do not help in cleaning up litter

Litter. City centres and suburbs in Buffalo City Metro and King Sabata Dalindyebo Municipality are drowning in it. Sure we had strike action late last year that caused rubbish to pile up for almost a month in some areas but according to both BCM and KSD these strikes are over. Everything is supposed to be back to normal. BCM advertised this on Thursday last week, apologising for the interruption in refuse removal and stating its employees would be working day and night to address the backlog.

When will they start to address the backlog? Anyone can see the filth of our cities and suburbs is not normal. Where are the city’s cleaners?

On Saturday Tony Yengeni tweeted that Mthatha was the dirtiest town in the whole of South Africa, with @MzwaneleManyi responding: “I was in Mthatha last week. The place is just filthy. It’s like you can take a high pressure hosepipe and hose it down.”

It is simply not acceptable for citizens to have to live in this filth. While individuals could and should do a lot more to keep their own patches tidy, more businesses could also do their bit. An example of this is BCM firm Car Connexion, hiring a team of unemployed men, together with their own staff, to tidy their neighbourhood’s sidewalks.

While the bulk of the responsibility for cleaning up lies with the municipality, they can help their citizens help them. How about more frequent shifts for cleaning crews so that bins are emptied more often? How about repairing or replacing vandalised bins? How about installing the muchpromised skips in areas where municipal refuse trucks cannot gain access?

A filthy city impacts on our ability to attract tourists. Who wants to swim in an ocean full of plastic bottles and risk stepping on broken glass? Nothing ruins a beautiful hiking trail or picnic spot quicker than the sight of over-full waste bins. It also impacts on our economic potential – companies looking to invest would look at the whole picture.

If municipal bosses can’t do something as basic as keep a city’s streets clean and sidewalks clear, how do they run the rest of their departments?

BCM’s #MakeServiceDeliveryFashionable #ACityHardAtWork campaigns are laudable in what they aim to do but quite useless if something as simple as refuse collection is not prioritised.

Anyone can see the filth of our cities and suburbs is not normal. Where are the city’s cleaners?