MOSSEL BAY NEWS - The Mossel Bay Municipality is intensifying its waste reduction measures and needs residents not only to recycle, but urgently to change the ways they dispose of household and other waste. Besides recycling household waste, the composting of green waste and the crushing of building rubble are measures contemplated to reduce the amount of waste being dumped at landfill sites.

Minimise dumped waste
At its monthly meeting on Thursday, 29 June council declared the possible non-availability of space for the disposal of waste a disaster in terms of the Disaster Management Act.

According to municipal manager, Advocate Thys Giliomee the municipality recognises the need for a regional landfill site as the current PetroSA facility is reaching capacity and would be closed down on 31 July 2018. 

"The proposed financial implications for establishing the regional landfill site, however, remain a huge concern. There seems no alternative cost effective solution other than to implement measures to minimise the amount of waste diverted to this regional facility."

The implications of the National Environmental Management Waste Act, which requires massive reductions in waste and landfill space, has led to instructions from the Department of Environmental Affairs that local authorities have a joint regional landfill site. Mossel Bay municipality, like those of George, Knysna and Plettenberg Bay, are therefore forced to use the proposed regional landfill site to comply with national environmental legislation.

Mossel Bay municipal manager Advocate Thys Giliomee (front, left) and George municipal manager Trevor Botha (front, right), Mossel Bay deputy mayor Dirk Kotzé (fourth from left, back), senior municipal employees and stakeholders met specialist consulting engineer Jan Palm (fourth from right, back) to discuss Mossel Bay Municipality's draft Solid Waste Diversion Plan.

Unaffordable
This Act requires municipalities to move from waste collection and disposal to a system whereby waste is avoided; minimised, reduced and finally - as a last resort - disposed of.

Despite Mossel Bay Municipality's waste disaster declaration and the Eden District Municipal Managers' Forum's appeal to the Western Cape MEC of Local Government, Environmental Affairs and Development Planning, Anton Bredell, to assist in the matter, the provincial treasury has as yet not issued the relevant certificate with regards to the unaffordability of the regional landfill project to the relevant municipalities.

Waste diversion plan
The municipality's draft Solid Waste Diversion Plan was discussed at a meeting on Tuesday, 18 July.

Both George municipal manager Trevor Botha and Walter Hendricks of the Eden District Municipality attended the presentation by specialist consulting engineer Jan Palm of JPCE Consulting Engineers.

Blue and black bags
Palm said it is more economical to render the collection of recyclables separated by home owners via an external contractor, as is currently the case. He recommended that home composting of green waste should be encouraged in addition to larger scale composting, and that residents should be motivated to separate household waste before disposing of it.

It is proposed that the municipality should ban all garden waste from the black bag waste collection system. A chipping and composting facility at the Great Brak transfer station is also recommended.

Mossel Bay municipal director of Community Services, Elize Nel confirmed the municipality would continue to provide the blue transparent bags currently being used for waste recycling.

Residents to assist
An appeal was made to residents to separate refuse into wet and dry waste and the dry waste into reusable and recyclable waste before collection to assist with the recycling process.

Also, the draft report recommends that building rubble be crushed and stockpiled and that a contractor be appointed for this purpose.

Palm said that although disposal may be less expensive than most of the diversion options, it still remains the least desirable waste management option. The study by JPCE Consulting Engineers found that insufficient amounts of food waste were generated in Mossel Bay to justify anaerobic digestion economically, however, there was sufficient organic waste in the Eden region to sustain an anaerobic digestion (AD) plant. The draft report suggests a co-composting option to be considered as an alternative to an AD plant.

Palm motivated for a continued insistence on the reuse and recycling of waste through diversion, even if the initial cost may seem somewhat higher, as landfilling remained the least desirable waste management option.

Doing it for future generations
The main reason for diversion from landfill is not about a direct saving in costs, but rather a future saving in resources and emmissions. By recycling, less natural resources need to be extracted from nature and by diverting organic waste from landfill it greatly reduces the generation of greenhouse gasses that contribute to climate change.

Diversion is therefore the "right" thing to do even though it may be more in monetary terms.

ARTICLE & PHOTO:  NICKEY LE ROUX, MOSSEL BAY ADVERTISER JOURNALIST

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