Swapna Prabhakaran
A quiet and mostly unseen battle has been raging for months around KwaZulu-Natal’s waste dumps.
Two waste dumps were officially closed down last year and another collapsed in a disaster that left the province with a hazardous waste-disposal crisis.
The chaos began after floods and mudslides last September wreaked havoc with the province’s dump sites. The spring rains caused major damage at the Bulbul Drive hazardous-waste site, situated in the southern suburb of Chatsworth in Durban.
The site collapsed after the heavy rains and tons of decomposing waste slid into the surrounding valley, threatening to slide down into the Umlaas Rriver.
No one died as a result of the ensuing pollution, but it was enough to spark a panic in environmental circles. Hasty reinforcements were built to shore up the walls that contain waste at the province’s remaining dump sites.
Pressure has since been mounting to find safer alternative dumping grounds.
This month a much-needed dump area has opened in Shongweni, bringing relief to environmentalists and waste-disposal crews alike.
The site is called Cell C, and is equipped to handle low to medium hazardous wastes. It is the third phase of waste-disposal company Enviroserv’s 10-year landfill plans in the area.
Rufus Maruma, the non-executive CEO of Enviroserv Holdings, says the site brings new hope for waste-disposal services in the province.
“Cell C in Shongweni marks the beginning of the end of the war against waste,” he says.
For the past nine months hazardous waste was shipped to other provinces at great cost to be dumped safely and legally.
Some types of “low toxicity” wastes were disposed of at a site in Bisasar Road, Clare Estate, a suburb of Durban, even though the site was not built to deal with hazardous wastes.
There have also been fears that the lack of an official local dumping site might lead to unscrupulous and illegal dumping in vacant lots, creating a danger to the public.
But the danger has been averted with the opening of Cell C. A variety of low and medium hazardous wastes can now be stored cheaply and safely at Shongweni.
The general manager of the landfill, Clive Gibb, says the 1,6-million cubic metre site will take 10 years to fill up with waste, and then a further 30 years to “rehabilitate” until it is fit for public use. Until then, it will just be a large and carefully monitored dumping ground.
Situated in a steep, narrow valley in the middle of sugar cane farmlands, the dump disturbs nobody with its unsightliness or its inevitable odours.
“Our nearest neighbour is a chap who runs a bed-and-breakfast establishment 3km away,” says Gibb. “He was very nervous about the dump, but once he’d come and had a look at what it is we do here, and understood it, he became one of our greatest fans.”
Certainly the dump is almost invisible from the surrounding areas. Despite its formidable size, it is difficult to spot, even from the dirt road that leads directly to the dump.
Environserv has taken measures to ensure that the new site will not follow the disastrous footsteps of the Bulbul Drive site. Gibb says engineers have introduced a rougher texture to the synthetic material that lines the Cell C site. The wall that keeps the waste in place – much like a dam wall – has been built 8m higher than usual, just in case there’s future trouble with floods.
ENDS