Landfills are the third largest man-made source of methane, a greenhouse gas more potent than carbon dioxide. (Eryn Scannell/GroundUp)
The four landfill sites in the eThekwini municipality have an above 80% compliance with waste management regulations, supported by improved fleet and logistics, but two of them are on the verge of reaching capacity.
“Overall waste management compliance across all the landfills has always been north of 80% and, currently, it sits around 85.6% from 90% five years ago,” the deputy head for plant and engineering for eThekwini Logan Moodley told parliament’s environment committee last week.
“We have focused significant efforts in understanding the value chain to optimise the use of these resources [fleet and compactors]. Preliminary data shows that about 60% of the total waste management cost is in transportation, followed by landfilling at some 30% and handling through a transfer station at some 10%.”
He said investments in fleets and logistics supported the municipality’s waste management operations.
“We have done some investments and it has improved significantly. We are now some 70% into clearing the backlog which is beginning to see improvements in terms of stabilising the waste function. The aggravating issue in the business is not only about trucks, but also how you use these resources more optimally.”
eThewkwini handles about 3 400 tonnes of waste every day, which equates to 0.6kg per capita, and it receives more than 1.3 million tonnes of waste a year, Moodley told committee members.
“The situation currently is that two out of the four landfill sites are reaching capacity, so we are down to 50% of use of landfills and this … is inducing challenges in the system.”
The Marianhill landfill has about two years of air space left and the Bisasar Road landfill has three to six months left.
Service costs, resistance to increasing waste management sites and reduced sorting of materials is exacerbating the issue, Moodley said.
“There have been issues of business forums stopping the main landfill and the semi-closure of two of the four landfill sites has caused a domino effect of forcing waste to the transfer stations to handle larger volumes. Separation at source is still at a very low level and needs assistance in terms of improvement,” he said.
Many metropolitan municipalities are not implementing integrated waste management plans and by-laws, committee chairperson Nqabisa Gantsho said.
“This is evident in the persistent illegal dumping, inadequate waste infrastructure, waste fleet management, low waste diversion and slow progress on source separation,” she said.
“The auditor general report has exposed severe failures at waste management, from unregulated landfill sites to settlements built on unrehabilitated landfill sites that have been closed, poor fencing or non-compliance with post-landfill closure norms and standards.”
South Africa has 826 landfill sites, which are either licenced and operating legally, privately owned and commissioned, or do not have a licence.
In 2020, the government developed a national waste management strategy to manage the crisis, with a target of diverting 40% of the waste from landfills to recycling centres within five years, 55% within 10 years and at least 70% within 15 years, “leading to zero waste going to landfill”.
The strategy also seeks to ensure residents have effective and sustainable waste services that are well-managed and financially sustainable, while ensuring compliance and enforcement with waste management regulations including “zero tolerance of pollution, litter and illegal dumping”.
Moodley said the municipality needs to take advantage of the “low-hanging fruit” to reduce the amount of waste going into landfills. This includes improved sorting at source — which means separating waste according to material, be it paper, glass or garden waste — for recycling, composting and rehabilitation.
“There is some 2% diversion from the landfill, mainly linked to garden waste, but the main diversion is low with 98% being landfilled.”
(Graphic: John McCann/M&G)
After having registered 144 waste pickers in the municipality, Moodley said the waste-picker integration plan and education would also support efforts to reduce waste that ends up in landfills.
“Our operating budgets going forward will be bolstering up education in ensuring this behavioural change such that communities do have an appreciation, and play their role, and support in terms of intensifying the separation upstream. Then you can create a resource market out of it.
“There are recycling programmes that will be taken through as part of the new financial year,” he added.