Johannesburg – Illegal dumping, especially in the suburbs, is on the increase.
Now, in an innovative move, Victory Park ward councillor Tim Truluck has started constructing berms, which are waist-high mounds of sand along the perimeters of parks and vacant stands, to prevent the trucks from entering parks.
The first was done in the Keith Fleming Park in November where there was major dumping along Ley Road.
The dumped rubble was used to build it up with additional building sand.
“So far it seems to have worked. We are hoping that grass will grow over it,” he said.
Now another one is being built up along Rustenberg Road.
“Barrow Construction has offered to help with the berms and repairing the fence along the road,” he said.
Illegal dumping of building rubble has become a huge problem in the city, because there is so much development happening around the city.
Developers want to cut costs and appoint informal, unregistered rubble removers, who too, want to cut costs by not paying the fees at the dump sites so they offload anywhere, but especially in quiet parks, he said.
“The JMPD does respond quickly to give them their due, and usually make the culprits reload the rubble onto their trucks.
"They also often impound the trucks, but the owners pay R1 500 to get them back and are right at it again as one load probably covers the cost of the fine.”
Truluck said the berms were a temporary measure until the by-laws are changed.
“The City of Cape Town is in the process of changing its by-laws to increase the fines between R5 000 and R10 000 and to confiscate the trucks. We, in Joburg, are hoping to do the same, but these things take time,” he said.
In the 2014/15 audited integrated annual report, Pikitup, through a contracted service, cleared over 276 000 tons of illegally dumped waste in open spaces across the city. The direct costs of clearing this was over R50 million.