BCM blamed for lack of dumpsites in EL
OVER the last couple of months, East London residents have been outraged by the spike in illegal dumping and littering across the city.
Residents from Cambridge, Abbotsford, West Bank, Amalinda, Parkside and Chiselhurst have lashed out at the Buffalo City Municipality for having no dumping sites in place around East London, with the only one being 30km away in Berlin.
Social media has been abuzz in bringing awareness to this growing issue, and several communities around East London have taken matters into their own hands and organised cleanups in certain areas.
On the East London Facebook page, Fix Our Broken City (East London), residents posted pictures dating back to October of heaps of rubbish being dumped on the streets. In Arcadia, filth and dumped car wrecks have led to a huge infestation of rats, resident Pat Whitfield said, while posting pictures of the dumping.
In response to e-mailed questions from the GO! & Express about the lack of waste disposal sites in East London, the Buffalo City Municipality said the city had programmes running simultaneously in an effort to curb illegal dumping.
“The ‘Go Green, Keep BCMM Clean’ is one of the projects the city is running to educate the community about the challenges of illegal dumping and how it negatively impacts on our social life, hygiene and the economy,” Buffalo City Metro spokesman Samkelo Ngwenya said.
In e-mails to BCM from Neil Smith, admin of Fix Our Broken City, the metro did not reply to questions about the shortage of landfill sites and dumping in the Buffalo Pass area.
BCM told the GO! & Express of another project called Adopt a Spot, where community members adopt a piece of land in their area where there is illegal dumping activity.
“The initiative started back in 2010 by citizens who had a passion for gardening and were interested in keeping their environment clean and green,” Ngwenya said.
BCM said it puts up “stop illegal dumping” signs but people ignored them and some had been stolen.
