The decision by the eThekwini Municipality to open its landfill sites to the public to dispose of their waste, has left business closeby frustrated.
The move was necessitated by the disruption to refuse collection due to the ongoing municipal workers’ strike.
The city’s landfill sites at Marianhill, Bisasar Road, Buffelsdraai and Illovu remain open to the public.
Zeadh Ahdam, who manages a spares shop near a landfill site in Durban North, speaks to how the dumped rubbish is inching closer to his premises.
“The dirt is creeping up to us in probably in the next few days it will be at our doorstep. The smell, the flies, it’s affecting our business very badly, no one wants to come the side, our clients are coming here, everyone is complaining. We don’t know maybe tomorrow they will dump in front of our door. We have cordoned off some of the places but I guess it won’t affect cause they will throw over that, there is nothing else we can do about it now.”
These Durban residents who are dumping their waste at the site, say they do not have other options because their refuse has not been collected for days.
“I feel guilty myself for dumping on the streets, it does not look good and it does not look nice but somebody is got to move the dirt. I live in a one-way narrow road with the dirt on the road you cannot drive in it. What is going on here, it is not nice, it’s not something nice to see. We have the bird park here which is always a clean area to drive through during the day watching the reviews, but now we have all the dots but the question is where do we put our dirt? It has gone too crazy and it is an inconvenience to everybody, we just hope that is done and ends and I must say it is hard for us to be coming here and dumping here at the site.”
