THE pilot waste separation project that was launched in Ward 9 in September last year to relieve pressure on the metro’s landfill sites, has been gaining huge momentum and will soon be expanded to other parts of the metro if residents keep playing their part.
PE Express previously reported on the Separation of Waste at Source recycling project during the launch held in a park in Westering, seven months ago.
Then MMC for Public Health, Lance Grootboom, said that if Nelson Mandela Bay residents can reduce the waste that goes to the landfill sites on a daily basis, the lifespan of these sites could be expanded because it has been found that most of the waste products that end up on the landfill sites are actually recyclables.
When the project started, a few residents were interested in participating but this month alone, more than 300 residents registered to be part of the project, leading to almost 1 000 residents in this ward currently registered as recyclers.
Current MMC for Public Health, Tshonono Buyeye, said that with the metro’s landfill sites running out of capacity to store waste, the residents of this ward needed to be commended for their efforts.
“We have a total of 350 new registrations of households in the Westering area. Good progress has been made, as we up until recently only had 395 households taking part. This now gives us a total of 755 registered households. We want to see more households taking part in this great initiative, as the plan is to expand the project to other areas too,” he said.
“We are providing the participating households with yellow plastic bags so that they can separate the recyclables from general waste. The waste is collected on Fridays and taken to the service provider that we are working with: The Waste Trade Company.
“Ultimately this creates jobs as there are people who are employed to further separate the waste into the different categories. We really need our residents to start caring for our environment and play their part in the environmental projects we are implementing.”
Buyeye urged the unregistered residents of Westering and Linton Grange to register on www.nelsonmandelabay.gov.za to push the current 38% participation rate to more than 40% for the metro to get good results from the pilot project.
Participating resident, Trudi Schuin-Dorfling, said that, as a lecturer, she does a lot of sustainability activities with her students and they often ask her what she is doing about it.
“I’ve actually been promoting it with them and it’s not in most of their areas, but I also believe that you need to do for your country, your town or city what you can.
“I think it’s vitally important for our city to be clean, neat and have the necessary facilities available.
“The population is growing more and more and even more people are just disposing of more rubbish at the end of the day. Everything is convenient and everything is in plastic containers but I’ve even gone as far as not purchasing plastics at the shops because of the paper versus plastic issue,” she explained.
Elderly resident, Thomas Horne, said that the project encourages him not to throw away what is potentially reusable.
“Recycling simply means that somebody takes that product and puts it back to its original state and then remoulds or remakes a new product from it. It’s also saving on materials and is a good thing because it’s creating jobs for people,” he said.
“At the moment our unemployment rate is at 35% and even if it is only four to five people somewhere, it means something because there are people collecting the waste in vehicles and people at the site where it is being sorted. They are being employed and these are people that can earn money.
“Apart from creating jobs, it is a far healthier and safer way of reclaiming rather than just jumping and letting people go scratching through dumping sites,” he added.
Since the project began, a total of 13 057kg of waste has been diverted from the two main landfill sites, at a monthly average of 2176kg.
Through the pilot project, the metro is collecting data and a model will be designed for the expansion of the project in other areas.
Residents are encouraged to send an email to wmeu@mandelametro.gov.za or phone 041 506 2833, should they have any comment/feedback or queries.
They can also visit the ‘My Waste’ webpage on the Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality website to register and obtain more information: https://www.nelsonmandelabay.gov.za/page/my-waste.
