South African municipal dumps are a mess, despite threats of court action

A stream of toxic leachate pours from the base of municipal and industrial refuse heaped up at a landfill site in Mogale City. (Photo: Emily Matike)

By Tony Carnie

28 Nov 2024

More than 80% of municipal dumps across the country appear to be flouting environmental laws and regulations. The Green Scorpions have opened more than 50 criminal cases, but it hasn’t led to an increase in compliance.

The vast majority of South Africa’s municipal landfill sites are not complying with waste and pollution control laws, despite a flurry of official warning notices and threats of criminal prosecution by the Green Scorpions environmental inspectorate.

This may not come as a big surprise to most readers, but the latest series of government inspections has nevertheless underlined the extent of the problem – suggesting that more than 80% of municipal dumps on a national basis appear to be flouting laws and regulations that aim to protect the environment, water resources and the health of people in the vicinity of these dumping sites.

According to the latest National Environmental Compliance and Enforcement Report, only 19% of municipal landfill sites inspected on a national basis are compliant. The worst performer was the Free State (0%), with only Gauteng and Western Cape coming anywhere close to compliance or partial compliance.

sa dumps Only 19% of municipal landfill sites inspected by the Green Scorpions were found to be compliant with national waste management and pollution regulations. (Graphic: Green Scorpions.)

Frances Craigie, national head of the Environmental Management Inspectorate (Green Scorpions) said 357 municipal landfill sites had been monitored for compliance over the past five years.

“To date, a total of 52 criminal cases have been opened against municipalities for non-compliant landfill sites. Despite the interventions made thus far, the status of compliance has not improved, with only 19% (67) of the 357 inspected sites found to be compliant.”

“Most of the sites are operated as dumping sites without proper access control, and waste is disposed of haphazardly without covering and compacting,” she told the biennial meeting of the Green Scorpions earlier in November.

Municipalities cited a “lack of resources” (finance, staff and equipment) as some of the main contributing factors for this non-compliance.

Heavy machinery drivers at work at the New England Road municipal dump in Pietermaritzburg. (Photo: Tony Carnie)

sobantu pietermaritzburg A resident of Sobantu, Pietermaritzburg, empties a refuse bag over the side of a hill next to his home. (Photo: Tony Carnie)

Of the more than 50 criminal cases opened so far by the Green Scorpions, eight municipalities had opted to settle by paying fines via plea bargain agreements in terms of section 105A of the Criminal Procedure Act.

These included offences at the Maizefield/Aliwal North landfill site (Walter Sisulu Local Municipality); the Cradock landfill site (Nxuba Ye Themba Local Municipality); the Lydenburg landfill site (Thaba Chweu Municipality); Standerton landfill site (Lekwa Local Municipality); Odendaalsrus landfill site (Matjhabeng Local Municipality) and the Bethal/eMzinoni, Leslie/Leandra and Kinross landfill sites (Govan Mbeki Local Municipality).

Poor access control

In previous enforcement reports, the Green Scorpions raised poor access control as one of the biggest problems. Where fencing was poor or gates were unmanned, waste pickers (and animals) were able to enter these potentially dangerous sites.

Poor access control also allowed prohibited waste types to be dumped as no personnel were there to monitor the incoming waste.

“Waste which is not covered with suitable material on a regular basis increases nuisance and environmental concerns like odour, dust, windblown litter as well as the presence of scavengers and vermin.

“The risk of fire due to readily available combustible material and increased leachate production caused by infiltration of rainwater into the waste is also increased.”

Waste picker health, pollution risks

A more worrying problem, not highlighted specifically in the latest official report, is the risk to the health of waste pickers and surrounding residents, as well as the pollution of rivers and farmland surrounding some of these sites.

But local scientist Emily Matike drew specific attention to some of these risks in a recent presentation to the Environmental Assessment Practitioners Association of South Africa meeting in Durban.

Matike, a PhD candidate at the University of South Africa, has been collecting and analysing water and soil samples for heavy metal and organic chemical pollution at the Luuipaardsvlei landfill site in Mogale City (Krugersdorp).

A stream of toxic leachate pours from the base of municipal and industrial refuse heaped up at a landfill site in Mogale City. (Photo: Emily Matike)

Her results show high levels of several heavy metals (including copper, nickel, lead, chrome and zinc) in leachate (polluted water runoff) at several points around the site. All these levels were above the World Health Organization safety limits for wastewater discharge into rivers.

Matike said Luuipaardsvlei was established 20 years ago and did not have an impermeable lining to capture and contain leachate pollution and had no leachate collection system. There was therefore high potential for this leachate to contaminate the environment if flows were not controlled.

However, Mogale City has contested several aspects of her presentation. In response to queries from Daily Maverick, a spokesperson for the council said three cells at the site had been lined after its initial establishment and that Matike’s report failed to acknowledge the presence of an active mine in the vicinity that could also be a source of heavy metals.

“The heavy metals as outlined in the report would naturally occur in any landfill as further stipulated by the licensing authority at the time of the authorisation of the waste licence,” Mogale said.

Meanwhile, environmental attorneys Melissa Strydom and Catherine Warburton have voiced a separate concern about apparent failures to record and endorse the title deeds of contaminated land (state and private).

In a legal analysis published in October, the Johannesburg attorneys noted that there was a legal obligation on the Minister of Forestry, Fisheries and Environment to keep a National Contaminated Land Register and to also notify the Registrar of Deeds of all land declared as remediation sites.

Strydom and Warburton say there are now more than 550 parcels of land on this register, accessible through the SA Waste Information Centre.

However, other than the Contaminated Land Register, “we have not seen an equivalent register kept or requirement imposed by the Deeds Registry, eg title deed endorsements by the deeds office for a remediation site.”

“This is disappointing as it was intended as a key mechanism to ensure that obligations would be known to, and binding on, successors in title. The obligation to notify of contamination thus falls squarely on the seller or person who intends to transfer contaminated land.”

If purchasers were not properly informed, landowners and lenders could inherit unforeseen legal liability for the rehabilitation of contaminated land.

They comment that it is remarkable that only about seven of the 550 contaminated sites on the list are mining-related areas.

(Daily Maverick also searched the register and could not find any reference to at least two well-known contaminated sites – the old Thor Chemicals plant in Cato Ridge and land surrounding the UPL/Fortress pesticide warehouse in Cornubia/Durban.) DM

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Poor access control

Waste picker health, pollution risks