Graham Wolff who suffers from emphysema, said the constant fires and fumes from Buffalo City Metro’s Stoney Drift dumpsite has worsened his condition over the
Wolff, who lives opposite the entrance to an illegal dumpsite on Garth Street, said the only thing that keeps him alive, is a portable oxygen machine given to him by his late neighbour, who also suffered from lung disease.
“When there is a fire at the dumpsite, my whole house becomes covered in smoke and I feel like I am going to die,” Wolff said.
In the past few years, the Daily Dispatch has reported on fires at the site which covered Amalinda, Stoney Drift, Braelyn, Cambridge and Morningside in a thick pall of toxic smoke.
Wolff was one of many affected by the fires at the dumpsite who signed a petition last year calling for the permanent closure of the site.
It is not clear what causes the fires, but residents blame people living on the site.
The Dispatch understands that the licence for the site expired in December 2013 and that there are many families who live in shacks on the site.
Buffalo City Metro spokesman Thandy Matebese said the department of waste management was assessing the site to determine its future use.
The Dispatch went to Stoney Drift last week and saw at the entrance a handwritten board stating that dumping was not allowed.
Two bakkies and a truck loaded with rubble were seen entering the site.
There was no sign of BCM workers or security at the entrance. — arethal@dispatch.co.za
BCM has only 2 legal landfills
Roundhill landfill site in Berlin and the King William’s Town landfill sites, which are full, are the only permitted general waste landfill sites in Buffalo City Metro (BCM).
Buffalo City Metro spokesman, Thandy Matebese says the metro has appointed a service provider for the management and
operation of the Gonubie garden refuse site and the plan is to get a permit for the site to operate.
Matebese said other dumpsites are not permitted.
They include dumpsites at Stoney Drift, Beacon Bay, Berlin Battery, Dimbaza, King William’s Town’s old tannery site, Mdantsane NU2 and NU12 and West Bank.
qMatebese said: “It was in the plan of the department of waste to have these sites assessed and to determine their possible future use.”
Matebese said some of the illegal sites became operational before the waste management laws were enacted.
The permits for some sites, such as Stoney Drift, have expired.
Meanwhile, illegal dumping has not stopped at a dump in Second Creek in Parkside which was closed by BCM and the provincial government a few years ago. Matebese said they would determine the dump sites’ future use. — arethal@dispatch.co.za