Residents kick up a stink over landfill
EVERY day for two weeks at a time, Hamilton Ngcobo collects and bags metal, plastics and anything else of value he can salvage from the Shongweni landfill site to sell to scrap and waste dealers.
It’s about midday on a typically hot and humid Durban summer’s day when we meet Ngcobo alongside the railway line that runs in the shadow of the privatelyowned site west of the city. He is on his way to wash in a nearby stream before getting ready to head back to the landfill when the heat eases.
“I came here to collect waste for recycling. I’ve been doing this for three years now,” Ngcobo said.
He is one of an estimated 36 600 waste pickers operating in the country’s landfills, according to a report by the Department of Environmental Affairs.
At the Shongweni landfill, about 50 people, most of them men, live in makeshift shacks that shake when a train passes by.
Ngcobo said he spent two weeks at a time at the landfill before going home to Umlazi for a break, and then returning. He often collects 10 big hessian bags of HIT BY THE STENCH: Sandile Bele says he gets headaches material during that time, which he sells for up to R2 000 depending on how much plastic — the most lucrative material — they contain.
He often has sore eyes and a “heavy” chest. Most of the pickers appear in poor health.
“Every day we go there to pick things. They [the landfill owners] don’t like it, but we go anyway because we are suffering and have no money,” Ngcobo said.
Neighbouring communities have raised serious concerns about the health implications of living so close to it.
The Shongweni landfill, which is owned by EnviroServ, has stopped receiving certain types of hazardous waste following complaints, and the company’s practices are being investigated by the environment department.
Residents from upmarket Hillcrest and the largely rural and poor KwaNdengezi and Dassenhoek all have the same complaint: the stench is making them sick.
Sandile Bele, who works for an NGO in Shongweni and lives in Dassenhoek, said the community WhatsApp group he was a member of received an endless stream of complaints about the landfill.
“You smell it first and then it hits you. When there is a smell you find you get a headache, you get a cough nonstop, teary eyes, burning eyes.
“I have that problem, and there are a lot of people who have the same problem. It’s very serious,” he said.
The Upper Highway Air NPO, a community action group, has called an urgent meeting for this Wednesday to address growing concerns amid claims that the stench is getting worse.
EnviroServ Group CEO Dean Thompson said this week the complaints about the landfill, which the company has operated since 1997, were new.
“Our independent air quality studies conducted in the area don’t indicate any health impacts of concern.
“We keep meticulous records of all complaints raised with us and try to follow up directly with those concerned. To date, we have spent R10-million at Shongweni to mitigate our contribution to the odour problem.”