DURBAN - THE Msunduzi Municipality has announced an ambitious plan to build a waste-to-energy plant at the New England Road landfill site.
The landfill has been a source of complaints by residents for a number of years and fires in 2020 led to some of them having to vacate their homes due to the toxic smoke.
There were also people living on the landfill site.
The issues surrounding the site led the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) to take the municipality to court. The SAHRC argued in its case that the city had disregarded national and international environmental laws in its management of the landfill site, violating constitutional rights and negatively impacting citizens’ health.
The Pietermaritzburg High Court ruled that the municipality’s management of the site was in violation of environmental rights and ordered it to come up with an action plan to address the issues raised.
The municipality said the challenges raised continued to be addressed, evidenced by the fact that there had not been a serious fire there in more than a year.
It said the plan to build a waste-toenergy plant was aimed at addressing the waste in the landfill site, rolling back the lifespan of the landfill and creating an alternate energy supply for local firms so they were not affected by loadshedding. But it would also mean the landfill was unlikely to be relocated from the area any time soon as had been mooted before.
Following the last big fire there more than a year ago, there was a call for the landfill to be relocated to a less populated area. At the moment it sits between three big suburbs, a township and at least three schools.
Delivering his report on the progress his administration had made in addressing the city problems this week, Msunduzi mayor Mzimkhulu Thebolla said they were exploring useful options for the landfill site.
Speaking on the city’s energy woes, the mayor said: “We have been granted funding by the US government to build a plant (waste-to-energy) for this purpose. This will result in the collection of much-needed revenue.
“This project should be strategically located in the political office as a mayoral project to ensure that it receives the attention it deserves.”
Speaking to The Mercury, Thebolla declined to give details about the funding, only saying the negotiations were still ongoing, but added that they wanted the construction to begin this year or at least for a contractor to have been appointed by then. He said the plant would bring new opportunities and ease some of the city’s problems.
“I have always maintained that there is no such thing as waste, the plant will turn the waste in the landfill into energy. There are many gases that are in the landfill and the technology available now can turn those gases into energy. That energy could be connected to our grid and supplied to our customers,” said Thebolla.
He said there was a firm in the city that had committed itself to using energy produced from that landfill.
“If this firm starts using the energy we will produce from the landfill, that will free up the power in the grid and we could supply it to households.
“This plant will also help to prolong the life of our landfill site, while in the process helping the municipality to go green,” he said.
Energy expert Chris Yelland said while he had not heard about this particular project, landfill sites were a problem for many municipalities and municipalities were now looking for ways to generate revenue from them.
“Waste has value, and by processing that waste you can extract value. Waste management is a growing subject and I am not surprised they are talking about this,” he said.
Yelland said there were waste-toenergy projects that were under way in some municipalities and there were many ways that waste could be turned into energy.
THE MERCURY