The Green Scorpions yesterday arrested the chief executive of Phambili Wasteman, Olivier Meyer, whose company is allegedly responsible for South Africa's biggest medical waste dumping scandal.
The company, a major contractor for 150 hospitals in the country, including the Netcare group as well as Gauteng's provincial hospitals, allegedly illegally dumped 300 tons of dangerous rotting human waste in Welkom last year.
Albi Modise, the spokesman for the Department of Environmental Affairs, confirmed yesterday that its enforcement unit, the Green Scorpions, arrested Meyer, a French national, at his company's Rosettenville, Joburg, head office.
Phambili Wasteman has been fingered for dumping rotting human tissue, including amputated limbs, needles and placentas, in Welkom, discovered in a bust by the Green Scorpions.
In November last year, businessman Gavin Brasher, whose Welkom premises were used as a dump site for the dangerous medical waste, admitted he was paid for it because he was having financial difficulties. He admitted to being promised R5-million from Wasteman to dump and bury such waste at his business, Maximus Bricks.
Last year, The Star was taken into the Phambili Wasteman's Rosettenville premises, under disguise, by a company truck driver, Mars Ross, who was disgusted with the treatment of the body parts and used needles. He was fired after The Star published the story, but maintained his concern over the dignity of the human body parts.
He photographed buckets of human waste lying in the sun in overflowing bloodied buckets amid a terrible stench and circling flies.
Ross confirmed that the buckets, which are supposed to be incinerated with the body parts, were being washed out and reused, which is contrary to medical legislation.
He also alleged that Wasteman was charging both the government and Netcare for the cost of new buckets while using its old ones.
The City of Joburg immediately launched an investigation, but it appears that this illicit practice continues.
Wasteman issued the following statement after the Welkom raid: "As a result of the legal process associated with the ongoing investigation into the alleged illegal dumping of medical waste made in late 2009, charges were formally laid in terms of the National Environmental Management Act against Wasteman today. The exact charges are yet to be determined."
Andrew Hunt, a Wasteman board member, said: "The board of Wasteman takes the charges very seriously, and has and will continue to co-operate fully with the relevant authorities."
Wasteman had assured its clients that the legal process associated with the investigation did not affect its capacity to operate effectively.
In addition to co-operating with the authorities, according to the statement, the Wasteman board and management set up its own investigation into the allegations related to medical waste.
To date, the head of the medical division has resigned and another member of the senior management of the medical business has been suspended. Furthermore, Wasteman has created a new independent executive position, that of national risk manager, at head office level, reporting directly to the board.
Dave Marock, of consulting practice Sheqplus, which specialises in hazardous waste, said the medical waste industry had been in dire straits for a long time.
"There are not enough treatment plants to treat the amount of medical waste on a monthly basis. These problems don't make it acceptable for waste to be dumped, but it does raise a bigger question about what should happen to deal with this in the future."