Enviro Champs tackle New Rest dumping
Stream comes back to life thanks to efforts
Look at an aerial map of north-east Port Alfred and, snaking past the dusty, dry plots of New Rest, you’ll see a trail of dark green. There’s a little stream that skirts the informal settlement and, down in the dip between the speed humps, a small dam that the goats and cattle drink from.
Maps in the Kowie River’s Estuarine Management Plan (the final version was gazetted in February) will tell you that New Rest, like much of Port Alfred, is built on the river’s catchment.
The maps show the little streams running through the informal settlement as nonperennial.
During periods of heavy rain, many New Rest homes get flooded. Given that there’s a network of dozens of little tributaries in this part of the Kowie catchment, it’s not surprising.
It was one of these tributaries that rewarded Port Alfred’s Rotary Enviro Champs by bubbling back to life after they collected an impressive 160 bags of rubbish in less than two hours on Wednesday March 13.
The volunteers, who are unemployed Nemato residents, decided to tackle dumping at the informal settlement on the west side of the R67.
Stepping up in support were hardware store Build It, which sponsored T-shirts and protective gloves, and Ndlambe Municipality, which provided black plastic bags and a large skip.
First, the Enviro Champs volunteers picked up household rubbish – mountains of it.
Then they started picking up chunks of building waste.
Port Alfred’s waiting list for housing stands at 3,216 (IDP 2023/24). The shortage of formal housing means informal settlements such as New Rest accommodate many people looking for work opportunities in and around the town.
The municipality has formal housing projects under way. But because it takes a long time and a huge budget to build houses, Ndlambe, like many other municipalities, has simultaneously embarked on an upgrading of informal settlements programme (UISP).
In New Rest, 556 homes are targeted for upgrading.
The funder is the department of human settlements. The municipality is the implementing agent.
Three different contractors were appointed last year to complete the necessary infrastructure: toilets (400), a road connecting the area to
Nemato; and a sports field. At a meeting with residents in May 2023, Ndlambe mayor Khululwa Ncamiso and her team of officials, councillors, and contractors, explained to New Rest residents that for Eskom to install electrical infrastructure, homes needed to be a certain distance apart, and aligned to a straight grid.
Standing ready for the new in-line homes that are to be built are straight rows of toilets between the existing New Rest settlement and the airfield entrance.
In all, 400 toilets are planned. They are low-flush pedestal toilets, being installed temporarily until bulk infrastructure and internal services have been completed.
These toilets are what their inventors say are a perfect compromise between ventilated improved pit (VIP) toilets and traditional flushing toilets: householders use grey water to flush, and they don’t smell and attract flies the way pit toilets do.
Back to last week’s cleanup: Volunteers said that along with household waste, it appeared to be waste from the construction of these toilets that had been left behind.
Talk of the Town has asked Ndlambe Municipality what mechanisms are in place to monitor compliance by construction contractors with good industry practice, environmental regulations and municipal bylaws.
TOTT has also asked whether the municipality will investigate the allegation that the company that built the toilets (TOTT won’t publish its name until we’ve given the company, via the municipality, an opportunity to respond) either dumped or allowed dumping of waste from the project in the area.
TOTT has asked what action the municipality will take should it find this to have been the case.
According to the 2023/24 IDP, 4,632 households in informal settlements across wards 1-10 in Ndlambe have their refuse removed at least once a week either by the municipality or a private company.
TOTT has asked the municipality to confirm whether this is the case at New Rest. If that weekly removal is happening, to what does the municipality attribute the piling up of household waste in the adjacent stream bed.
TOTT will publish the municipality’s responses once received.
Meanwhile, the Port Alfred Rotary Enviro Champs planned to return to New Rest this week to continue their work of unburying the stream. For enquiries and to support their work, contact Carol at 083-441-4262 or Ray at 083-778-8675.