Zoning out in Zone 1 — why does nobody care about pollution?
Residents drowning in filth amid leaks, illegal dumping and rampantly overgrown vegetation
Zone 1 in Mdantsane is polluted, overgrown and hard to look at for too long. It feels like BCM is doing very little here.
Yet, life carries on. Stoic residents go about their business and taxi hooters go off in a cacophony, calling on commuters.
When you drive along Mazaule Road, past the SAPS station, it is clear grass cutting along these verges is long overdue.
Overgrown grass has become the norm in BCM.
Branching into Mbolekwa Road, by a popular butchery, you’ll get lost trying to find your destination.
At Mzimkhulu Primary School, illegal dumping is apparent all along the periphery of the school fence — and long, thick grass grows inside and out.
Someone nearby is burning old grass, branches and noxious household refuse.
A reader had asked the Dispatch to check out the houses numbered 1301 to 1701.
At Mzwandile Mqotyana’s yard in this section, a small stream of water can be seen running from the direction of the outside toilet.
Mqotyana says the leak has been ongoing for almost a year and the matter has been reported to the municipality, but still the water runs.
“BCM came to fix it eventually, but they are still not done. It has been weeks now. They did not even cover the pipe.”
The polycop pipe is submerged in water, which trickles out of the yard and into a gutter in the street.
Some of the houses in the street face an area with a natural thicket of bush and a dirty stream running through it.
The bush is in dire need of cutting as it encroaches on the road, effectively turning it into a one-way street.
Creepers wind up electricity poles and cables.
Some residents are making an effort to keep the outside of their yards neatly trimmed, a far cry from what they face across the road.
Two residents have tried to turn parts of the bush into small vegetable gardens — guerrilla gardening in Mdantsane!
The stream is a filthy mess, clogged with household refuse and plastic bags. A large, heavy, black plastic bin lies on its side in the middle of the sick, trickling waterway.
The bloodied woolly pelt of a freshly slaughtered sheep is visible in the stream.
Well-trodden paths — shortcuts — are all around, but they look far from safe. I’d hate to be here at night.
A fresh water leak emerges from another house, creating a muddy, stagnant pool.
Trash has been dumped into the water, and it is foul.
Dakhwa, a bright new RDP housing project, is swamped by a huge, illegal dumping ground.
The stench of pollution is nauseating. Don’t people care about where they throw their suppurating trash?
And why is it not picked up by BCM?
Driving here is scary. The bush is so overgrown that oncoming traffic is obscured.
Another reader e-mailed the Dispatch about bushes closing in on the clinic and BCM office in Zone 16.
He said: “I am a victim of crime and a neighbour was too, not long ago. The tsotsis hide in these bushes before their ambush. It is terrible.”