August 16, 2006
By Ndaba Dlamini
WASTE collected from Joburg will increasingly be processed, until the City completely stops using landfill sites in 2022.
This is in terms of a new waste reduction strategy developed by the City's waste management company, Pikitup, which advocates for the City to collect and process waste, significantly scaling down its dependence on landfill sites over a 15-year period.
Pikitup has come up with a smarter way of managing waste
Over time, the City will process garden waste to produce compost, provide facilities for the recycling of glass and paper and process some of the waste to produce fuel plants.
The long-term plan, called the Strategic Road Map for Pikitup, is in line with the City's Growth and Development Strategy (GDS) as well as the Integrated Development Plan (IDP) and national goals like the Polokwane Declaration on Waste Management.
The Polokwane declaration, signed by representatives of governments at national, provincial and local level in 2001, set out goals for local governments to reduce waste disposal to landfills by 50 percent by 2012 while developing a plan for zero waste to landfills by 2022.
Subsequently, the City of Johannesburg came up with a five year IDP to move towards achieving the targets contained in the Polokwane Declaration and divert garden waste to generate composting for resale and hence avoid landfill disposal.
Pikitup developed the strategic road map in line with the City`s IDP and the goals set in the Polokwane Declaration, to identify various ways of diverting waste away from landfill sites and, alternatively, processing the waste in a more beneficial way, said the City's acting infrastructure and services Executive Director, Peter Coetzee.
Landfill sites in the Northern areas of the City have been depleted and the Linbro Park Landfill site will close down by the end of September 2006. Land to build landfill sites on has become expensive and hard to establish, giving rise to the need for cost-effective technologies to manage waste. Various technologies have been identified to reduce waste to landfill sites, such as composting plants and materials recycling facilities. "The strategy will be developed in phases and will define how we will achieve the Polokwane Declaration's goal for zero waste to landfill by 2022."
The cost of waste reduction measures to be implemented over the period 2007 to 2022 will be about R540 million, said Coetzee.
Phase one of the project will involve a screening process of various technologies of managing waste to determine their suitability and financial viability.
Pikitup has identified and recommended the following technologies for managing waste in Johannesburg: composting of greens and of municipal solid waste, reclamation of recyclable waste utilising recycling facilities, anaerobic digestion for hotel and restaurant waste and the establishment of refuse-derived fuel plants.
Phase two of the project, which has been advertised in media, will involve conducting research and development on the most appropriate specific technologies and initiating environmental impact applications and the costing of the project.
Already, Pikitup has set up the Panorama Composting site in Roodepoort with a capacity to process approximately 60 000 tons of garden waste per annum. Currently, the plant processes 12 000 tons of garden waste per annum.
By 2012 two of the City's remaining five landfill sites, namely Robinson Deep, and Ennerdale Landfill may have closed down, says Coetzee. Kya Sands Landfill closed some five years ago and Linbro Park is in the process of being closed down.
"We will have to go through five to six phases until the completion of the project in 15 years' time. There might be a need to join forces with neighbouring cities to set up a waste management link. We might for example set up a waste management plant that will link Ekurhuleni and Johannesburg" says Coetzee.
As one of its innovative waste management solutions, Pikitup is considering installing an underground waste containerisation system in the city centre. The system will consist of five cubic metre underground containers with a receptacle at the top where waste will be deposited. The containers will be lifted out of the ground by trucks to empty them.
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