Pikitup's vicious circle of trash

It’s a vicious circle which is costing Joburg ratepayers millions. Pikitup refuses to allow free dumping of rubble, industrial waste and garden refuse at its disposal sites, so rubble removers empty their loads illegally on empty pieces of land. It pays a company R64 million a year to collect the illegally dumped material, which is transported to the very sites where the removers wanted to dump it in the first place. Small rubble-removal contractors are pleading with Pikitup to allow them to dump at the sites free of charge, saying it would save the utility millions. Pikitup's policy is also forcing many smaller, legal contractors out of business because illegal removers undercut their prices as they do not pay dumping fees. Small independent contractor Frank Matheba told The Star that Pikitup was paying Aqua Transport Plant Hire a fortune for this purpose. High dump fees, licence fees and time wasted constantly renewing licences were making it difficult for small businesses to remain viable.

“We want to work and clean the city. At the Marie Louise dump site in Roodepoort, some 80 percent of the trucks coming in are trucks carrying illegally dumped rubble.” Another problem is all legitimate removers are required to open an account with Pikitup but if they are just R50 in arrears, they are not allowed to dump. Matheba took The Star to an area behind the Marie Louise landfill site. Trucks were coming in at a steady pace, looking for a place to dump illegally. “It is like this every day - they do not want to pay the dumping fees,” he said. He had stopped collecting unwanted food from schools and shops because it cost R1 208 per 500kg to dump. “It’s not worth my while. I don’t know where that ends up - probably in the veld,” he said. The cost of dumping 500kg of material ranges from R96 to R1 208 for the destruction of foodstuff.

Boetie Kruger is another contractor complaining about the high dumping fees. He and his son have been in the business for years. “We are paying to offload, but others go around the corner to dump behind the dump,” he said. In 2013, The Star broke a story about how then Pikitup managing director Amanda Nair had awarded a R26m tender to Aqua, a firm implicated in a forensic investigation for fraud and corruption. This was after Pikitup had forked out close to R6m for Ernst & Young to conduct an investigation into several companies providing services to it. The investigation recommended Aqua should be criminally charged for fraud because of alleged irregular activities, including suspected tender collusion, and should be made to pay back money it had overcharged Pikitup. Despite the damning report, a three-year tender worth R263m was awarded to Aqua in March 2013. Pikitup confirmed it would be spending R64m in the 2016/17 financial year to collect illegal dumping. Spokesman Jacky Mashapu said in terms of the City of Joburg’s environmental by-laws, any person was required to pay a disposal fee at all landfill sites, except for builders’ soil and other material suitable for covering landfill sites.

The area behind the Marie Louise landfill site was being used by informal recyclers. “Efforts are put in place to ensure the reclaimers are allocated a habitable and convenient place to conduct their recycling business.” The reason dumping foodstuff was so expensive was that it had to be treated or it would become contaminated and a health hazard, Mashapu said. “This type of waste is treated differently, as an area or cell has to be specially prepared for the waste to be disposed of. Also, we need to ensure the waste is destroyed and properly covered. This is normally arranged prior to the waste being disposed,” he said. He confirmed that they currently had only one service provider for this.