Buffalo City Metro is dumping tons of Duncan Village domestic waste on its own doorstep.
Compact trucks were photographed disgorging their foul loads in the parking lot outside the administration offices of the solid waste management department in Cambridge on Saturday.
Diapers and rotten food were seen in the pile of trash, which has risen barely metres from the BCM solid waste workers’ lunch spots.
The stench has raised the ire of the garbage collectors, who complained their employer was committing an environmental crime and putting their health at risk.
They downed tools a few weeks ago in protest over a lack of protective gear.
Municipal spokesman Keith Ngesi said of the bizarre dumping spot: “It is an interim arrangement. There was a need to take refuse from Duncan Village because it was obstructing the road and people could not move. It was moved to the solid waste depot. Even there, it is temporarily dumped at the back.”
Ngesi told the Dispatch on Saturday the waste would be removed to Round Hill waste site at Berlin by yesterday. However, by yesterday the pile of trash at the offices had grown even larger. Trucks were seen arriving and dumping their loads in the parking lot.
A refuse collector, who declined to be named for fear of victimisation, said: “Management took 10 trucks from the department of roads and construction on Thursday and instructed workers to start collecting waste in Duncan Village and Ziphunzana and to dump it at our offices. They have been working round the clock since then. We have just gotten our protecting gear after months of protesting and staging sit-ins. Now we have to start protesting all over again over this decision to dump rubbish where we work.”
The Dispatch saw the driver of a truck reversing to offload piles of garden refuse, building rubble and household rubbish. Asked if this was legal, the driver, who refused to give his name, responded : “I don’t make decisions. I just do as I am told.” He then drove off to collect more waste.
Another employee said: “We were not consulted....What is painful is that we are now forced to eat our lunch surrounded by this smell.”