More than 1 226 tons of litter and illegally dumped waste is removed from the Cape Town CBD every year to landfills by the Cape Town Central City Improvement District (CCID). This is equivalent to over 100 000 kg every month.
To encourage visitors and businesses in the CBD to address this issue the CCID launched its 2023 anti-litter campaign on Wednesday 3 May.
Visitors and businesses in St Georges Mall might have noticed the truck loaded full of rubbish parked there on Wednesday, but Kally Benito, manager of the CCID’s urban development department, says they did this to make people aware of how massive the problem is.
“It is a mammoth task. We want to create awareness not just for the public but also for businesses so that they are aware of the issues that we are facing with regard to littering. So that everyone can be responsible and do their bit with regards to disposing of their waste in a responsible manner.
“This truck is showing the people what is done regularly. The truck is here to create awareness. When you drop litter on the ground you are not aware of the impact it has when everyone does the same thing.”
Benito says businesses need to ensure that they have a waste management plan in place. “If they don’t have sufficient bins, they can contact the City to apply for additional bins so that waste isn’t dumped illegally. We have teams on the ground that are sweeping the city daily to keep it clean.”
Tasso Evangelinos, CCID’s Chief Executive Officer, says he hopes their campaign will mitigate this challenge.
“Dumping is an ongoing problem, and there are two aspects to it. The illegal dumping happens regularly, especially after hours when smaller businesses and retailers who don’t have a contract with the City or any other service provider take a chance and dump their bags either outside someone else’s venue or by the green bins.
“The second part of the illegal dumping is the fact that a number of businesses don’t have sufficient bins contracted to them, because it’s a cost factor, they don’t have as many bins as they should have. A lot of the businesses are then overloaded with waste and that becomes illegal dumping when they put their bags next to the bins.”
Benito says the amount of litter collected decreased extensively during the lockdown in 2020 to 582 tons. She says this number has since doubled.
“The amount of litter jumped from 709 tons in 2019 to 1 226 tons in 2022 – an increase of over 70%. We must work together to turn this around. Our hard-hitting campaign aims to educate people to dispose of waste responsibly.”
Benito says the CCID intents to keep the CBD “crime- and grime-free” and they have partnered with the City to achieve this.
She says there are 37 professional daytime cleaners employed via J&M Cleaning Services who work from 07:30 to 16:30 and 16 night-time cleaners who work from 19:30 to 04:30.
They are assisted by litter-picking teams employed via NGO Straatwerk who are deployed Monday to Saturday between 08:00 and 17:00.
According to Benito, the CCID also has 310 branded cigarette-butt litter bins throughout the CBD.
“Cigarette-butt litter is also a huge problem in town. In 2020, we collected over 680 kg of cigarette-butt waste from these bins.”
The City has recently developed a new outreach and enforcement strategy known as the Auxiliary Law Enforcement Project. This project is a more intensive response to the challenge of illegal dumping and involves physical cleansing, education and enforcement working together around illegal dumping hotspots.
As part of the project, cleansing staff working in the cleansing rapid response programme will remove waste at dumping hotspots while auxiliary law enforcement officers engage the community and help to mobilise them against dumping.
With the expanded public works programme (EPWP), 35 auxiliary officers have been appointed and a further 75 will be appointed to participate in this effort, which has a budget of about R3,5 million.
The City says during February this year, 149 fines were issued for littering and illegal dumping, with a total value of R287 000.
To report illegal dumping to the CCID control room call 082 415 7127.
