By Pretty Ndaba
In the community of Tshamahansi the village dump their waste right in front of the graveyard and next to the stadium. I could imagine people going to bury their loved ones passing and parking next to that dump, Men, women and children are affected already, the smell is too bad.
The community is dumping the waste where the municipality was collecting them, so the community always hopes that the municipality truck will come and collect waste as usual, but their hopes are fading away every day. It’s almost three years now the municipality not collecting waste, and they used to supply the community with plastic bags in order for the community to throw their waste . Our youth every week play many activities inside the stadium, and unfortunate part is that they don’t play wearing masks, so the smell follows them when they play.
The very same community who are dumping this waste are too much affected them. Sometimes when kids coming from school, will even pick up some of the pampers and play with them, they also throw them right on the road…We can’t blame them because they are still young, and they don’t know about the effects. These kids are schooling in Chumana primary school, and it is recorded that many kids are suffering with sinus, it’s because of smell on the main road.
Our parents, youth and kids are affected by this dumping, the smell is too much, and the community cannot bear anymore… people wait for taxis on this road when going to town, work and some to school.
Municipality must at least provide a space where community will dump waste, since when they are failing to help the community by collecting waste.
People continue to dump waste around the community which causes a very bad smell. This is not safe for our health because it puts us in danger. Many people suffer from TB in our neighborhood, because of the dust from the
tailing so this dump fills also contribute to our problems and more and more people will get infected if they don’t remove these dumping sites.
Another community resident, Ntombi, a 45-year-old woman, said: “Our fridge defrosted during load-shedding rats ate the rubber on the fridge door went inside the fridge and ate the meat. This happened this year in May 2022 for 2 weeks. I have no idea how we going to eradicate the rats because they are terrorizing the community. People throw garbage, as well as rotten or unused food causing rats around our area to infest people’s homes”. One of the community residents she says that rats entered her shack ate her couches, and her wardrobe, and left her clothes with holes.
The Department of Environmental Affairs and the municipality must come up with ways to monitor the landfills around our area. The community must take ownership of their environment and refrain from dumping refuse in the streets and in other places that are not designated dumping sites. Refuse must be put
in bags supplied so that Pikitup can collect them. This will get rid of rats and other pests.
