Pretoria - Pretoria West businesses left sitting with rubbish on their doorstep are pleading with the City of Tshwane and environmental departments for a more permanent solution.
Even though the corner of Vom Hagen and Zeiler streets is flooded due to the recent rains, business owners in the area said this was a much better look than the one they had been left to deal with daily.
Plastic, cardboard, rotten food, nappies, shoes, pieces of old TV sets, etc are just a few of the items along the drainage system in the area.
The managers of Midas hardware, on the corner of the two streets, said they had written numerous emails and tried to reach out to the Tshwane Municipality and the mayor about the problem, to no avail.
On Friday, Tshwane’s executive mayor Randall Williams tweeted that the communities’ pleas had been heard and City teams were cleaning up the corner.
He indicated that the City would intensify by-law enforcement in the future as there seemed to be a lot of street mechanics nearby who were fixing cars and discharging waste, such as old car parts, into the canal.
Earlier in the year, during a clean-up campaign in the area, Minister of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment, Barbara Creecy, encouraged Pretoria West residents not to see waste as rubbish, but as money.
Creecy, who was commemorating Earth Day, joined residents in Danville and Pretoria West in picking up waste from illegal dumping sites, including Phillip Nel Park.
One of the store managers said although the City often came to try to clean up the area, it was simply putting a plaster on a wound as it was not getting to the source of the problem.
“We’re relieved that the City finally heard our pleas and came to clean it up, but this is not the first time a government department or stakeholder has tried to clean up this place and it always fills back up.
“Earlier on in the year, we had officials from the environmental department come and clean up this place, but because they’re not dealing with this from the top where it starts, this will always bring us problems.
‘The more people see rubbish the more comfortable they become and simply add their own rubbish too,” he said.
The manager said if the stakeholders did not come up with a more permanent solution, the City would have to keep coming every year, to no avail.
Pretoria News