While plans by the directorate of Community and Social Services to improve dump sites in Grahamstown stall, residents living near the municipal rubbish collection points say their lives remain hell.
While plans by the directorate of Community and Social Services to improve dump sites in Grahamstown stall, residents living near the municipal rubbish collection points say their lives remain hell.
Presenting his annual report at a portfolio committee meeting last Tuesday, director Mandisi Planga stated that although his department had planned to erect fences and ramps at dump sites by the end of 2012, they had managed to start work on only one ramp during the current financial year.
Meanwhile, Tantyi residents live among growing piles of decaying rubbish.
Nosipho Plaadjie, a mother of two, fears for the health of her children. She lives close to the local dump. “People throw their dead dogs, animal skins and rotten things next to the dump, and all those smells come straight into my house,” said Plaadjie.
She had been living in her home for 13 years in 2011, she said, when the municipality put a dump site next to her property. They had done this without consulting Tantyi residents
. “The [dump]gets full and people throw their garbage all around it,” she said.
When Grocott’s Mail arrived at the dump site on K Street, Plaadjie’s street was full of rubbish and strong winds were blowing it out of the unenclosed dump site and “I live closest to the dump site and when I complain, I am told to watch for the people who are littering and warn them to stop,” said Plaadjie, who added that she didn’t want to play security guard.
Plaadjie said that the litterers wait for night fall and then leave the rubbish without being noticed. The municipal spokesman failed to comment on the matter.
