Human Rights Commision acts on dump crisis.

An urgent application against the Msunduzi Municipality on its mismanagement of the New England Landfill Site has been filed by the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) at the Pietermaritzburg High Court.

The application, which is set down for next week, seeks to declare the municipality’s mismanagement of the city dump an unlawful violation of the waste management licence, the Environmental Management Act, the Water Act, as well as a section of the Constitution and International law.

In February this year, the SAHRC announced it was investigating the current state of the New England Road landfill site, noting the many challenges plaguing the site over many years. These challenges include poor leachate management system, pollution of the environment, non-functional equipment, lack of gas, as well as the lack of air and quality monitoring amongst others.

“These have attributed to the emission of strong toxic fumes and the outbreak of several fires which are posing severe threats to the sustainability of the environment and to the health and well-being of residents in both the local and surrounding communities,” the SAHRC said in a statement.

Following this, in July this year, the city experienced yet another hazardous fire at the dump that has unanimously been described as one of the worst of the many fires dating as far back as 2016.

SAHRC Commissioner, Jonas Sibanyoni, has compiled an affidavit comprising over 70 pages dealing with the background of the application, the commission’s involvement, the environmental authorities’ failure to comply with laws, and the municipality’s failure in their constitutional right to protect its citizens. Sibanyoni maintains that the Msunduzi Municipality-run New England Road landfill site is a “disaster waiting to happen.”

“The violation concerned has spanned a period of more than ten years. The plight of the municipality’s citizens is continuously in jeopardy. It is only a matter of time before a disaster may occur at the dump. In fact, such a disaster has already happened in the form of fires,” the affidavit read.

Sibanyoni said the SAHRC had first engaged with the municipal stakeholders regarding this issue, and from their engagement, had established that the municipality’s operation of the city’s dump site had compromised its citizens’ health and wellbeing, negatively affected livelihoods, and has negatively affected the environment within the municipality’s jurisdiction.

The affidavit detailed the history of the dump operations and non-compliance, and that several audits had been made on the dump site over the years. In 2015, there was a noted improvement in the dump’s management; however, this lasted only until mid-2017.

Despite active steps the municipality had taken to improve the situation, such as the removal of waste pickers and recyclers residing on the premises, increasing security and fencing, and repairing the leachate system, Sibanyoni said the municipality had abandoned their maintenance of the dump site since 2017. In October 2017, a comprehensive audit on the municipality and its management of the dump was conducted. However, Sibanyoni said the non-compliances listed in the report have persisted.

“As a consequence of the municipality’s failure to ensure that the workforce of the dump is adequately covered and compacted, the incidents of fire have occurred frequently after October 25, 2017,” he said.