Pikitup Really Needs to Pick It Up

On Frontline: Waste Reclaimers Save City Millions in Landfill Space

- Story & pictures by Emily Wellman Bain

Pikitup currently battles with challenges such as work stoppages due to delayed payment of contractors, recurring illegal dumping and littering, insufficient by-law enforcement, depletion of landfill airspaces, increases in population and waste generation, ward 98 councillor Beverly Jacobs says.

While healthcare and community safety are of paramount importance, the broken window theory tells us that once the "little things" go wrong in a community, bigger problems are not far behind.

Johannesburg certainly has no shortage of bigger issues and waste management is no different. What, to some, is simply litter on the ground, shows a societal degradation far worse than meets the eye.

Pikitup is the city entity responsible for waste management, which includes picking up litter, emptying household municipal bins, emptying street side bins, and the management of dumping sites across the city.

The entity employs 4,500 people and uses more than 200 trucks to collect refuse. They service an area of 1,625km2 and collect about 6,000 tons of waste every day. It is a mammoth job.

So, aside from preaching the reduce, reuse, recycle mantra, what is Pikitup doing to manage the waste situation in Johannesburg, and what could it be doing differently?

Dumping sites and the business of illegal dumping Johannesburg has several sites where residents can dispose of waste, but the sites are often full. This fuels illegal dumping.

The Fairland dump remains closed, which has led to more illegal dumping.

In Fairland, Pikitup did not conduct an environmental risk assessment of the site and surrounding areas when it expanded from a garden refuse-only site to also taking other waste.