Johannesburg - The City of Joburg, known as the City of Gold, has become a pigsty.
It has become all too common for citizens of the city, including visitors, to be greeted by piles of uncollected waste as they get off their taxis to work, even though Pikitup, the company tasked with waste collection, has enough workers on a 24/7 rotation.
Pikitup is the city’s official waste management service provider, responsible for keeping the city clean and preserving an attractive and hygienic environment for residents and visitors.
The company that services the entire 1 625 square kilometres of Joburg by collecting and disposing of the city’s six million citizens’ domestic waste, said it has obtained extra fleet vehicles to assist in cleaning the city and address these problems which will be on standby in the event of fleet breakdowns.
On Tuesday, The Star, during its visit to the CBD, was greeted by piles of rubbish that had built up over several weeks and remained in the same spots they were left in at some of the CBD’s main intersections.
On some of the streets, tons of refuse bags can be seen strewn on the streets, having been ripped open by waste-pickers scavenging for something worth selling on the waste market.
Some street vendors in the city lamented Pikitup’s lack of visibility in their respective stalls and places of operation during The Star’s visit to the city centre.
The distinct smell of urine and rubbish lingers in the air in the hub of commercial and retail activity, with Commissioner Street, Jeppe Street, End Street, and many other street corners showing signs of decay due to piles upon piles of uncollected waste.
Speaking to The Star, Michael Masango, who has for more than 20 years been selling fruit on the corner of President and Kort streets, said ever since he lost his contact numbers for Pikitup, they had not been receiving waste collection services for over a month now.
“I used to call Pikitup whenever there was such a problem. However, now that I have lost the contact details of one of my contacts there, there has not been any waste collection. We are forced to serve our customers in a filthy environment, and we suffer because some customers can’t bear this stench that comes out of the litter just a few metres from where we serve them,” he said.
Masango’s sentiments were echoed by Agnes Mulaudzi, who, on the opposite side of Kort and Albertina Sisulu (previously Market Street), sells chips and sweets.
“It has been three weeks of filth and litter, as you can see for yourself, and we are being forced to conduct our businesses in such an environment. The worst part is that even Pikitup people come to dump some of their collected waste here, but they never come back to remove everything. It is just unacceptable what is happening here,” Mulaudzi said.
This part of town is not the only one experiencing litter and urine smells. On the other side of the city, on the corner of End and President streets, just under the bridge, waste-pickers who scavenge litter for a living, have made Dance Mashele’s life a nightmare as they spill litter onto the vicinity of his car wash.
He told The Star that he had tried numerous times to engage the city and stop the litter that is damaging his business.
“It has been like this for the past three weeks now. I have tried on numerous occasions to stop waste-pickers from coming here and even asked Pikitup to help me secure this place so that no one comes to litter and pick waste from here, but no one wants to help me.
“Now that Pikitup has not come to collect waste in over three weeks, things have become so bad that I am losing customers due to the stench and the litter that is being spilled onto the street by waste-pickers who refuse to listen when we speak to them,” Mashele said.
According to a recent statement from MMC for Environment and Infrastructure Services, Michael Sun, illegal dumping interventions in the City of Joburg are indirectly creating a new generation of illegal dumpers.
Sun said over the festive season, Joburg was plagued with illegal dumping in several areas, including the inner city, Bramley and Malvern.
He believes that citizens take advantage of the cleaning service, by simply dumping where they know their refuse will be removed.
Following the recent procurement of 41 illegal waste collection tipper trucks, the city said Pikitup has been working tirelessly to clear up more than 1 900 illegal dumping hot spots, however, Joburg residents and businesses continue to illegally dump.
Pikitup spokesperson Muzi Mkhwanazi said the efforts to keep the city clean are hampered by the dense population in some parts of the city as they rely on JMPD to assist in this regard.
“Congested and densely populated sections of the city are a huge problem to keeping the city clean. Therefore, in order to clean such areas, Pikitup depends on the assistance of JMPD officials, particularly during peak hours, to assist with clearing traffic for its trucks to access such areas for cleaning purposes.
“Furthermore, Pikitup drivers and truck runners have established relations with taxi drivers to assist them in accessing these congested areas for cleaning purposes as well. The congested areas are a huge challenge, for no sooner had the waste been collected, the area is dirtied again as a result of illegal dumpers and people who litter,“ he said.
A memorandum of understanding between Pikitup and the JMPD will be entered into to ensure that waste by-laws are enforced by the latter. Furthermore, the War on Waste campaign in the inner city that was launched in December last year is set to continue this year.
The Star