A fight to remove mountains of refuse in two of Hout Bay’s informal settlements, Imizamo Yethu and Hangberg, versus the need to address the behaviour or culture of dumping highlights a need to go back to the drawing board and find ways to kill two birds with one stone.
This follows a complaint against the City by resident Johnson Mayeki, who condemned it for “failing its constitutional mandate to remove the refuse of informal areas Imizamo Yethu and Hangberg in Hout Bay.”
On Wednesday 16 August, Mayeki claimed the City has been failing to remove refuse from these areas effectively and timeously since the end of its financial year.
“The reason for this seems to be the project no longer running and no locals employed to work as before,” he said.
Mayeki added that fellow resident, Amanda Thethi, engaged with Ward councillor Rob Quintas, “who committed that refuse would be removed in two days, but this has not happened.
“We, therefore, demand the immediate removal of refuse and sweeping of streets on a weekly basis in Hangberg and Imizamo Yethu.
“We further demand that Ward councillor Rob Quintas to facilitate a meeting with the Department of Solid Waste involving us and the community to facilitate a more inclusive waste-management plan for Hangberg and Imizamo Yethu informal settlements, which will also seek to push public education so residents better understand their role in keeping our communities clean.”
From his side Quintas replied that refuse was starting to be removed in volumes since Saturday 12 August.
“The process is ongoing and teams have been in Imizamo Yethu and visible since then. It is disingenuous of Ms Thethi to state otherwise and the statement reflects the pure political diatribe that I have become used to over the many years of good City of Cape Town service delivery.”
“In fact”, Quintas added, “Imizamo Yethu and Hangberg are some of the few areas in Cape Town that received daily collections of waste.[…] Ms Thethi hasn’t stated that in the communications that I had with her, I informed her that the entire (City) was brought to a standstill by a week-long taxi strike, which saw services not being rendered across the Metro due to staff unable to get to work or due to service vehicles being attacked in various locations in the city.”
He referred to Hout Bay having experienced similar disruptions to services affecting MyCiTi routes which were forced to have improvisation in place due to the stoning of buses in Hangberg and near Imizamo Yethu.
“This included the stoning, damage and injuries experienced by members of the public, and where assailants retreated into Imizamo Yethu.
“In summary, the taxi strike only ended on Friday and since Saturday already, solid waste teams were visible and have been addressing the backlog there and elsewhere in Hout Bay.”
Quintas further mentioned that all areas of Hout Bay had taxi strike and related violence interruptions in collection of waste, not just Hangeberg and Imizamo Yethu.
A series of photos illustrating the problem of refuse and dumping in these communities was shared with People’s Post by both representatives.
Quintas, in addition, sent a multitude of timestamped pictures, with GPS coordinates, of teams actively cleaning sites in places like OR Tambo Road and a few spots in Salemander Road, since Sunday to Wednesday 16 August.
The taxi strike can only be blamed to a point, since following photos further revealed sites having been cleared in Imizamo Yethu on Tuesday 15 August), only to be again riddled with heaps of waste the next day.
Such scenes beg many questions: Should an entirely new waste management plan be drawn up? Should the City’s team frequent these areas twice daily to clean up after illegal dumping?
Should educational outreaches increase within the community (no matter who the facilitator)?
Or is there a culture of dumping and little regard for environmental affairs that ought to be called out among the community?
What is clear is that these predicaments apparent in Hangeberg and Imizamo Yethu would need to be tabled, tackled and discussed to continue on a road to sustainability.
“I do believe that behaviour plays a crucial role in the issues experienced by the community,” Quintas said in conclusion, “and that addressing that, with possible re-evaluations of the current (waste management plan) could possibly have a better outcome.
“The fact remains that the ongoing and continuous dumping will never be able to be kept on top of, unless there is an attitude change to the disposal of solid waste in communities.”
