Scavengers intimidate capital’s landfill users

SCAVENGERS are intimidating users of Pietermaritzburg’s landfill site, damaging the fencing, erecting illegal structures and starting fires.

A resident, who did not wish to be named, said he had taken a bakkie-load of shower doors to dump and a group of men had surrounded the vehicle as he approached the gate.

“I feared for my life and thought I was going to be hijacked… I quickly drove through the gate and some men followed. I then realised they wanted what was in the back of my bakkie.”

The municipality has conceded there are problems at the site and a plan has been devised to try to address them.

The city’s risk process manager, Kwenza Khumalo, said a security assessment had been conducted in June.

It found access control measures were insufficient to stop tip-pickers from standing outside the main gate, waiting to jump into peoples’ vehicles.

The guards were unable to control the scavengers. “The tip-pickers… cannot be managed within the site and are intimidating drivers coming to dispose waste… the site does not have sufficient regulatory signage as part of control measures,” said Khumalo.

He said there was an informal arrangement that the tippickers were allowed in specific areas from 8am to 4pm. “Now that the tip-pickers are there, we can’t wish them away. We have to formalise agreements… and monitor them.”

He said the community around the site had broken the fence to create a thoroughfare and had erected shacks in the dumping areas to sell items.

Khumalo said monitoring towers should be erected. The landscape of the site required a specialised patrol unit such as quad-bike riders, to cover the site and two points of entry and exit were needed.

He said guards should be equipped with binoculars, portable radios and pellet rifles and the site should be equipped with CCTV cameras, high mast lights and a back-up generator.