Want to make Joburg cleaner, Herman Mashaba?

On my daily bus commute from home to the office in the morning, many bins in the city centre are already full. This is no surprise given that street traders starting the day are unwrapping their goods.

People on their way to work, school or just going about their day may be having breakfast on the go and need to discard food wrapping and peels.

And given the vibrancy of the city, the constant buying and selling that’s always going on throughout the day and the “eat on the go” habit, it’s no surprise that by the time I leave the office in the evening and pass through the city centre there’s a huge heap of rubbish that has piled up all around the overflowing dustbins.

I’m not alone in noticing this; it’s been a problem plaguing the city for years with the same causes identified many times before.

City of Johannesburg Mayor Herman Mashaba regularly tweets about his disdain for littering and dumping. In fact, since holding office, the mayor has rightfully prioritised making Johannesburg clean. I agree, we do need a cleaner city. Cleaner towns, cities and a cleaner environment should be seen as critical for the public agenda, more so in a city like Johannesburg where the consequences of littering and dumping extend beyond health.

The city’s drainage systems are unable to handle severe flooding, which makes dealing with our littering and dumping problems especially important – because these contribute to blockages in the storm water drainage system.

But the mayor’s approach of scolding people does nothing to address the underlying reasons why people litter and dump in the first place. If Mashaba is serious about keeping the city clean, ensuring that the City provides the enabling infrastructure to do this is essential. There are a few ways this can be achieved.

First is an investment in higher capacity bins that are regularly emptied. When bins are not cleaned at regular intervals, they end up contributing to the littering and dumping problem, as I’ve seen in my own daily commute to and from work. Decades worth of experimental and observational studies show that “litter on the ground induces greater littering behaviour”. So, if Mashaba is indeed serious about keeping Johannesburg clean, we must ensure there is space for people to throw away their rubbish.

Second is rethinking where bins are placed, as this also matters. The other evening as I was standing at a bus stop in Braamfontein, Johannesburg, waiting for my bus home, I finished drinking a cooldrink. There was no bin at the bus stop for me to place it in, which meant that I had to walk to the corner where there was a bin to throw away the can. I could do that because I had some time before my bus arrived.

What about people who do not have time? Litter usually gathers at places where people congregate, due to the social practices that develop in these spaces, so there must be more bins available at those places. It is usually quite obvious where they are needed, where people gather and eat, drink or even change an infant’s nappy, like bus and taxi stops. Surveying could also be done to ensure bins are placed where they are most needed.

Third, over and above a functional bin strategy, the City needs to integrate waste reclaimers – who are integral to waste management in many cities across the world – into its waste management strategy. A challenge facing the country is the shortage of landfill sites, with Johannesburg’s landfills set to be full in six years if the city remains on its current trajectory.

In South Africa, waste reclaimers reportedly recycle up to 80% of the waste, saving municipalities millions of rand. As noted by reclaimers themselves, their labour subsidises municipalities. If waste claimers are able to recycle so much, with so little support, imagine what more they could do if they were formally integrated by the city – earning living wages, with decent working conditions and labour protections. This would enable the City to deal with its waste problem in an environmentally sustainable way that improves lives.

What we need from Mayor Mashaba is for him to back up his commitment to a cleaner city with public resources used more effectively by investing in bins that are emptied frequently, better-placed bins and an underlying waste reclaimers strategy. People in our city want to keep it clean, we just need to make it possible and easier for them to do so. DM

Koketso Moeti has a long background in civic activism and has over the years worked at the intersection of governance, communication and citizen action. In 2019, she was announced as an Atlantic fellow for racial equity. She is also one of the inaugural Obama Foundation fellows and a 2017 Aspen New Voices fellow. Follow her on Twitter at @Kmoeti