Mountains of rubbish on every corner of Overport are an eyesore and a problem facing the community for years. In some areas, piles of rubbish are so huge that they spill out to the side of the road obstructing traffic. It is a breeding ground for rodents and other disease-carrying vermin.
But who is to blame for these streets of shame? In an attempt to rid the area of this health hazard community-based organisations, eThekwini Secure and the Active Citizens Coalition (ACC) met with the management of the Durban Solid Waste (DSW) in Springfield Park on Tuesday. EThekwini Secure chairperson, Imtiaz Syed said the question of Overport and its state compared to that of Musgrave has always puzzled the community. “The understanding we have is that there is a sense of responsibility in more affluent areas,” said Syed.
He said as one drives through areas like Brickfield Road, where most of the property is let out, there are issues such as illegal dumping and a lack of property maintenance. “It is simply because there is no sense of ownership in those areas and people care more about what’s inside their home and not the environment,” he said.
Syed said this discussion formed a major part of the meeting. “We called for more enforcement from DSW and for role-player and stakeholder meetings. The meeting proved fruitful as it gave us insight on the roles and responsibilities of DSW and gave us an understanding of where they stand in terms of what we can do to achieve this common goal,” said Syed.
He said the approach to reach this goal will see DSW provide training to community organisations. “For our volunteers to properly help the community we need to understand, from the perspective of DSW, what regulations are in line with the law. By the next two to three weeks we should have an understanding of the way forward. Today’s meeting was part of many with different departments to build synergies. It is not just DSW but Land Reform and Parks and Gardens. The responsibility is for us to get all role-players involved.”
ACC member, Zain Soosiwala said the first goal they want to achieve is to supplement DSW education to the community through the network the organisation has built. “With this joint venture DSW will be able to communicate any message to the community through us. We have used a ground-up approach and that has helped us grow our network into the hundreds. We will use this to help DSW in the areas they are struggling with.”
Climate reality leader and environmentalist, Nazeer Jamal said the issue of illegal dumping and litter in Overport and surrounding areas has been a great concern for environmentalists for a long time. “As much as we can report to the municipality on each location, the responsibility is on each and every person from the individuals, community, landowners, and shop owners to ensure their own waste is being removed and disposed of correctly,” said Jamal.
He said waste, especially plastic, ends up in storm water drains causing flooding and damage to infrastructure during heavy rains but also travels to rivers destroying already weakened ecosystems and then into oceans killing marine life.
“We have to realise that our actions today, or lack thereof, have long-term negative impacts tomorrow. We can no longer rely on landfill sites as these are mostly all filled to capacity, we have to reduce our demand on single- use plastics, recycle and start creating solutions.”
