Reducing waste, a matter of survival
IT is easy to understand why Pikitup, the City of Johannesburg’s waste management company, remains a thought leader and an action driven entity when it comes to waste management and recycling throughout South Africa.
The entity understands that proper waste management is the nexus of the City’s ability to effectively deliver basic services.
Pikitup Managing Director Amanda Nair insists on a paradigm shift to see waste not as ‘rubbish’, but a resource or a raw material.
“Together with the City of Johannesburg, we have developed a waste minimisation Plan with a purpose to turn waste streams into value streams.
“We encourage people to reduce, reuse, recycle, or recover as much waste as possible before burning it (and recovering the energy) or otherwise disposing of it.
“At Pikitup we believe that if communities are mobilised to sort waste at household levels, that will go a long way in waste reduction and the creation of a clean City,” Nair says.
She emphasises that Pikitup is essentially a stakeholder-driven business, and as such, a strong partnership with key stakeholders and the community is crucial to the entity’s vision to be the leading integrated waste management company in Africa and be considered amongst the best in the world.
Johannesburg could run out of landfill airspace in the next 8 years and some observers say the City should take a cue from waste disposal and management efforts in Kigali, Rwanda.
“The overall budget for the Kigali waste disposal and management project is USD 3, 5 million (approximately R50 million), whilst that of the City of Johannesburg is over R2 billion.
“There is no reason why we should not support Pikitup’s efforts to innovate and improve the management of all waste streams, recovery sources, and extract value throughout the waste management value chain,” observes Dorothy Gumede, a Soweto based environmental activist.
Pikitup Chairman Dr Trish Hanekom says Johannesburg residents produce more than 6 000 tons of waste a day, most of which ends up in landfill sites.
The locations of the landfills are as follows: Goudkoppies landfill site – Naturena Robinson Deep landfill site – Turffontein Marie Louise landfill site – Roodepoort Ennerdale landfill site – Devland “As a city we have seen a 300 percent increase in per capita waste generation. Ten years ago waste generation per capita per year was an average 146kg.
“This has spiked to 385kg per capita per year. We need to urgently reverse and change trends and behaviours,” Hanekom says.
National Clean-up Week is from 14 to 20 September.
Addressing the Johannesburg Waste Summit 2015 in March, Executive Mayor Parks Tau extolled the virtues of reducing, reusing and recycling as a way of dealing with waste management.
“The high population growth and prosperity in our City, means that waste tonnages will grow.
“Johannesburg is the most densely populated, urbanised and cosmopolitan city in South Africa. It is home to 4 million people. Statistics show that each person in the City produces 1,2 kilograms of rubbish every day,” said Executive Mayor Tau.
He added: “Presently, illegal dumping costs the city a total of R50million per year and street cleaning costs us R4,856 per ton. In addition, illegal dumping is harming our environment.
“Often, waste flows into storm water drains pollute rivers and dams. It is unsightly and attracts rodents and sometimes flies.
“As the City of Johannesburg we call for behaviour change among our citizens, requesting them to view waste management in a different light.
“Let us stop littering and indiscriminate dumping. Instead let’s start recycling.”
Member of Mayoral Committee for Environment and Infrastructure Services Councillor Mfikoe said great progress was made since the inaugural Waste Summit in 2013.
She added that as part of the investments in waste management, the City purchased six (6) truck mobile recycling bins and twelve (12) trailers; twenty (20) caged trucks; four (4) wood/garden chippers; six (6) builders rubble crushing machines and 1000 fixed recycling bins for schools
In another matter, the Summit held robust and insightful discussions on best practice and innovation in strategic waste management.
In the Declaration participants committed themselves to, among other things:
Participate and collaborate in forums locally, provincially and nationally in implementing the actions on waste management set out in the National Development Plan (NDP). Avoid generating waste. Cooperate with Pikitup to promote a multi-stakeholder coalition in the waste sector to innovate and improve the management of all waste streams, recover resources and extract value throughout the waste management value chain.
Advocate for regulatory measures, and campaign for comprehen- sive separation at source in our homes and in the workplace, as a prerequisite for effective reduction, reuse and recycling.
Support the Jozi@Work initiative, a co-production model contributing to reducing poverty, inequality and unemployment across Johannesburg, and creating entrepreneurial opportunities in communities.
Work with the public, mobilise churches and schools, engage business, labour and civil society organisations, appeal to all councillors, MPLs and MPs from the different political parties representing the electorate, to participate in a massive on-going campaign for society at large to participate in an effective “war against waste”.
Against this backdrop, Nair believes in ‘shared responsibility’ which she describes as the crucial role of state departments, progressive business, labour formations NGOs, community groupings and municipal entities in innovative thinking and partnerships that can alleviate the negative behavioral and financial cost challenges sometimes attributed to waste management.