Rubbish fast consuming once-beautiful Musina

Residents of Musina are complaining more and more that this once-beautiful border town is turning into a giant rubbish dump.

“People drive and dump their rubbish where they want to,” remarked one irate resident. Nowhere is this more obvious then at the municipal dumping site just outside of the town on the Harper/Campbell road.

For weeks now, rubbish has started to pile up along the road leading up to the rubbish dump and the area adjacent to the rubbish dump. To say the least, the place is an awful, stinking mess. “Then you have to deal with the flies … who knows what diseases will spread from here,” remarked another dumping-site user.

Mr Wilson Dzebu, spokesperson for the Musina Municipality said, however, that they were aware of the problem. “The site that is depicted in the photographs is part of the old dumping area and it is being used temporarily as the contractors finish laying the pioneer layer of the new cell that the municipality will be relocating to,” said Dzebu. He confirmed that the municipality has a valid license to operate the facility, issued by the Limpopo Department of Economic Development, Environment and Tourism on 14 December 2016.

Dzebu explained that people were dumping their rubbish next to the road as the temporary site was not fenced. “Some drivers did not follow directions from the security guards regarding where to dump their waste, which ended up blocking the temporary road and near Harper Road, as depicted in the pictures,” said Dzebu.

What action will the municipality therefore take to address this growing environmental crisis? “The municipality has ensured that the landfill management contractor pushes all the waste that is blocking the road, as well as the one that is off site, back to the temporary site. The security at the site has also been strengthened to ensure that cars coming from either side of the road are directed properly to where they are supposed to dump until relocation to the new cell is finalised,” said Dzebu. The security has also been an issue, with some users of the dumping site, especially women, saying that they felt unsafe when visiting the site.

If all goes according to plan, the situation at the municipal dumping site is expected to return to normal within the next week or so when the new cell is completed. “It is expected that relocation will take place any day now, with the latest date being 31 March 2019,” said Dzebu.

News - Date: 29 March 2019

Andries van Zyl

Andries joined the Zoutpansberger and Limpopo Mirror in April 1993 as a darkroom assistant. Within a couple of months he moved over to the production side of the newspaper and eventually doubled as a reporter. In 1995 he left the newspaper group and travelled overseas for a couple of months. In 1996, Andries rejoined the Zoutpansberger as a reporter. In August 2002, he was appointed as News Editor of the Zoutpansberger, a position he holds until today.

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