Investment in mechanisation to boost municipal waste compliance

MUNICIPAL WASTE COMPLIANCE Investment in mechanisation to boost

Many local municipalities find themselves facing serious challenges in executing waste collection services due to inadequate fleets and equipment that are the result of insufficient budgets.

To help address the situation, during 2018/19, the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment (DFFE) engaged with the Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (CoGTA) and National Treasury, requesting that municipalities be permitted to procure waste collection and landfill operation vehicles through the Municipal Infrastructure Grant (MIG). This request was subsequently approved following an amendment to the MIG regulations.

To raise awareness of this development, and as part of its National Waste Management Strategy (NWMS), the DFFE recently used its own resources to fund the provision of 24 pieces of equipment to 20 municipalities nationally – at a cost of around R44.5 million. The equipment supplied includes skip loader trucks, front-end loaders, compactor trucks and TLBs.

Strategic interventions for waste

The NWMS, which was revised in 2020, aims to provide a framework for government policy and strategic interventions for the waste sector. It is aligned and responsive to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of Agenda 2030 adopted by all UN member states.

It is also aligned and responsive to South Africa’s National Development Plan: Vision 2030, which is our country’s specific response to, and integration of, the SDGs within our overall socio-economic development plans. The strategy is based on the update and revision of the 2011 version and is said to be built on the success and lessons learnt from the previous iteration.

The 2020 version focuses on the introduced concept of a circular economy, aiming to reduce environmental impacts by the reuse and recycling of processed materials. The concept and strategy are further expanded on through the three strategic pillars: • waste minimisation • effective and sustainable waste services • compliance, enforcement and awareness. The Minister of the DFFE, Barbara Creecy, has reiterated that in order to achieve the goals of this strategy, all stakeholders must play their part. “National and provincial government must support municipalities to develop local integrated waste management strategies. We must ensure our landfills comply with the regulatory environment and waste does not leach into groundwater or into the soil. We must invest in the yellow fleet and, every year, we must ensure more and more homes have access to safe waste disposal,” Creecy explains.

To improve waste management in municipalities, the DFFE is assisting in the development of their integrated waste management plans, and training on sustainable waste management practices.

Public-private collaboration

Creecy asserts that the private sector must also promote the circular economy and divert waste from landfills, seeing as government has already set up the regulatory environment for extended producer responsibility schemes to promote recycling in the packaging, electronics and lighting industries, with recent regulations gazetted for new sectors such as used oil and pesticides.

“Government and the private sector must work with waste reclaimers so that we build a dignified waste reclaiming industry that promotes waste diversion from landfills, promotes the circular economy, and gives a decent livelihood to the tens of thousands of men and women who do the daily, backbreaking work of the recycling industry,” Creecy concludes.