Waste reclaimers worried about livelihoods as Johannesburg suspends operations at landfill

Reclaimers at the Marie Louise landfill in Johannesburg say they are at risk of losing their income as the city and its waste management company Pikitup vacillate on whether to close the site, which is nearing full capacity. 

Close to 300 reclaimers retrieve general waste from the landfill site, including plastic, paper, cardboard and fabric discarded from households, and sell it to recycling companies. 

They said the redirection of waste to Johannesburg’s other sites, which are also reaching capacity, would threaten their livelihoods. 

Out of the six landfills owned by Pikitup, two are inactive and four are estimated to have less than a year of space left, with the Marie Louise site having already reached capacity in January, according to a landfill survey conducted in June 2024. 

According to Pikitup’s 2025-26 business plan, the Goudkoppies landfill is estimated to close in February, followed by the Robinson Deep landfill in May next year and the Ennerdale landfill in July.

The reclaimers and their representative, the African Reclaimers Organisation (ARO), said the City of Johannesburg and Pikitup have not been transparent about their decisions regarding landfill sites. 

“In the past month, Pikitup has communicated with the reclaimers at Marie Louise twice about the impending closure,” said Melanie Samson, a professor of sociology at the University of Johannesburg, who conducts research at the site. 

“On 8 August, Pikitup officials at Marie Louise informed reclaimers that the landfill would no longer receive general waste as of 11 August, giving them only three days’ notice.

“And, at that time, they said it was because the landfill is full and it needs to be closed — that it has reached its full capacity in terms of the landfill permit from the provincial government.” 

A day later, city officials reiterated the closure notice, but reversed the decision after meeting with reclaimers and their representative, with the landfill reopening on 12 August, Samson said. 

However on 21 August, the city announced that the landfill would no longer take general waste from 1 September, citing capacity limits. But that decision was later reversed once again.

“There is legislation, there are regulations, around how a landfill must be closed.

“It must be managed very carefully, and the fact that they are being so capricious in — twice in the period of one month — announcing that the landfill would no longer receive general waste … shows that they are not giving sufficient thought to having a proper plan towards closing the landfill for general waste and then closing the landfill completely,” Samson said. 

But the city said its decision to “temporarily suspend operations” was so that it could assess capacity.

“It is only after that determination that a decision will be made. The suspension is to allow the entity to put intervention measures in place aimed at ensuring continuous compliance with the permit conditions,” spokesperson Nthatisi Modingoane and Pikitup spokesperson Muzi Mkhwanazi said in a joint response to the Mail & Guardian. 

“The decision was communicated to stakeholders including waste-pickers — represented by ARO — and with the Gauteng department of environment through physical and online meetings. A general notice was also placed on the site’s gate. 

“It was shared in customers’ and community WhatsApp groups in Roodepoort, Florida, Dobsonville, to mention a few.”

However, ARO claimed that the city and Pikitup had reneged on their promise to fulfil the mandate set out by the 2011 National Waste Management Plan to address landfill capacity issues. 

The document stated that Johannesburg’s rapid population growth and economic development were driving rising waste generation and straining city services.

To address this, the city proposed a Johannesburg-wide rollout of a separation at source system, a detailed waste characterisation study and greater diversion of green waste to composting plants. 

It emphasised the need for stronger legal frameworks, coordinated community recycling programmes and partnerships with stakeholders, including integrating the informal recycling sector. 

“The main point is that the city has known for a very long time that the existing landfills were going to reach capacity and that’s why, in the 2011 Integrated Waste Management Plan for Johannesburg, the city had identified the need to extend the lives of the landfills, to plan for their closure and to ensure that they had created new landfills before the existing ones closed,” Samson said. 

But the city said that it had developed the Landfill Master Plan to address and propose key interventions to address landfill space.

“The intervention related to Marie Louise is to rebuild the leachate dam [landfill dam] in a different area, thus unlocking the potential to create new cells, establishment of material recovery facilities or transfer stations and sorting facilities where the leachate dam is, thereby, extending the site’s capacity by another 10 years,” Modingoane said. 

“The capacity-extension proposals are subject to confirmation or approval by the Gauteng department of environment. The interventions in the master plan do also propose the construction of material-recovery facilities — it must be pointed out that two such facilities are under construction at the Robinson and Linbro landfill sites.

“It should be recorded further that all these plans are subject to budget availability, hence projects are staggered in phases to be implemented in different financial years.”

Reclaimers are still sceptical of the city’s response and the suspension of operations at Marie Louise. They include Themba Gojo, who has been working at the site since 2007. He said he has been able to support his family by selling recycled material extracted from the waste.

“It is very important for me, because when I’m working there, I get everything. I don’t have to borrow money from someone else to provide for my family,” Gojo told the M&G. 

“Actually, we are soldiering on whether it’s raining or hot. We are dedicated to improving the lives of our families, because everyone is a family man, every woman has a family — the community of Bram Fischer is also gaining because there are a lot of people. When that landfill is closed, they suffer a lot.” 

Representatives at ARO are urging the city to ensure that, when reclaimers lose their jobs, their rights and livelihoods are still protected. 

“We need to have a just transition process on how we cater for everyone that will be affected, from the municipal workers and specifically for reclaimers, we have to create a social plan,” said Luyanda Hlatshwayo, a reclaimer and founding member. 

The plan would look at how municipalities integrate waste-pickers into the sector as well as establishing a platform where policies are documented and given to the government to approve and ensure municipalities follow these steps when closing landfills.

“There are plans that can [let]the reclaimers work at the landfill for now, until we can actually have alternative plans, and Pikitup’s business plan for 2025-26 has allocated a budget to increase the lifespan of the landfill,” Hlatshwayo said.

ARO said it wanted to partner with the city to share waste-management solutions, which include separation at source at residential areas and creating a system that protects workers and the environment alike. 

The city said it welcomed collaboration with all key stakeholders, including waste-pickers.

[We] will endeavour to expedite necessary frameworks like [memorandums of understanding] to guide our collaboration as we implement critical interventions to ensure waste disposal continues within environmental and legal prescripts while supporting the livelihood of waste pickers.”