Whether you walk by or speed past in your car with the windows rolled up, the overwhelming stench from the Marie Louise landfill in Soweto will get to you.
The combination of the smell from the landfill and the dust from the nearby mine dumps means that residents from Meadowlands Zone 11, parts of Dobsonville and the sprawling Bramfischerville settlement are plagued by dust, smells and fears for their health.
Residents are frustrated but feel helpless to change the situation. Henry Hlatshwayo, a father of four, has lived in Bramfischerville extension 2 for five years and says the cumulative effects of the smell and the dust are unbearable. In summer, the dump smells worse after each rain shower, but in winter, once the smell subsides, ”we get lashed by dust, which gives this area a milky appearance for days”, says Hlatshwayo. ”Experts say that fine dust could be dangerous in the long term as it causes chest and throat-related problems,” he adds.
Fellow resident Ntombifuthi Mabizela shares Hlatshwayo’s concerns. ”Sometimes I regret choosing a house here. The area is just not suitable to raise children,” she says. ”One does not need to be a medical doctor to tell these conditions are not good for one’s health.”
Professor Harold Annegarn of the department of geography and environmental management at the University of Johannesburg concurs, saying that excessive dust may pose serious health problems.
Mabizela says residents have held several meetings about the issue of the stench, but nothing is ever done about it. She says they have been given a variety of excuses such as a waste compacting machine having broken down.
Residents fear the smell is a reflection of the landfill operator’s failure to adhere to stringent waste management procedures, such as ensuring that waste is properly sorted and then covered with soil.
The African National Congress councillor for Ward 44, Patricia Magubane, admits that the site stinks and that she has been engaging with residents about this. ”I had two meetings at the beginning of last month with residents about the matter. After the meeting, I took up the issue with Pikitup, who said the problem was that the waste was not covered with soil and they are now going to ensure this happens,” says Magubane. She says the company has assured her that it will use chemicals to help deal with the bad odour. ”We are definitely working on it and I have been to the site to see for myself,” says Magubane.
Mabule Mokhine, coordinator of Earthlife Africa’s Zero Waste Project, says this is not an isolated instance, but mirrors the environmental situation in most townships. ”Marie Louise has outlived its usefulness, as it is one of the old landfills with apartheid legacies. It started to operate at the time when there was no enforcement of environmental compliance,” says Mokhine.
Landfills are generally designed to operate for between 15 and 20 years and Mokhine suggests Marie Louise may have exceeded its lifespan: ”Its continued use is in contravention of the progressive provisions of the new environmental requirements as stipulated in the National Environmental Management Act.”
Mokhine also notes that the fence around Marie Louise is not secure and that stray dogs as well as human scavengers slip in with ease to dig out the rotten waste food. The busy road nearby is almost always littered with the bodies of dead dogs which adds to the stink.
Professor Prvoslav Marjanovic of Wits University’s school of civil and environmental engineering says: ”In well-maintained landfills as soon as waste trucks dispose of their load, a motorised heavy-duty machine is used to compact it and then a front loader covers it with soil.”
Once a landfill is full, it is rehabilitated for future use: Ellis Park stadium is built on a landfill.
The problem has a racial tinge to it as well, with whites from nearby Roodepoort dumping their waste at the site. While this is legal, it reinforces the view that more affluent people use poor communities as dumping sites.
”We have seen it before, where wealthy northern countries find it convenient to ship their waste material to the African shores. We feel it is unfair to be recipients of waste we did not generate. Why dump here and not in their own neighbourhood?” demanded one angry resident who did not want to be named.
Marie Louise was granted permission to operate by the Department of Water Affairs and Forestry in 1993, before new regulations were passed in 1997, requiring environmental impact assessments (EIA) before a landfill is allowed to operate.
”All landfills that operated prior to 1997 will have to go through an EIA process,” says Thabo Ndlovu of the Gauteng department of agriculture, conservation and environment. He says his department is doing audits of all landfills in the province and is interacting with local authorities either to close down landfills not complying with the new regulations, or to set up management committees to ensure sites are run properly.
Yet councillor Magubane says she has never heard of such a committee and is planning to set up her own committee to follow up on residents’ concerns.
Sizwe Matshikiza of Gauteng department of agriculture, conservation and environment says that while his department has the power to withdraw the permit of a landfill that flouts environmental regulations, this could only happen once all other avenues had been exhausted.
”In view of your enquiry, we will institute our own investigation with the view of alleviating problems that may be encountered by our communities,” promised Matshikiza.