by December Ndhlovu
The MPWC has been involved in illegal waste and river cleaning since 2009. We have adopted a nearby river called Nwaritsane River, and we have also adopted an illegal dumping site just a few meters en route to the river. Nwaritsane River is one of the two main rivers feeding into Injaka Dam, which is the main water supplier in Bushbuckridge. This means that all the dirt, mostly from disposable nappies (for both children and sick people) ends up in the dam which our tap water comes from.
- Illegal waste management
There is a serious problem of illegal dumping of household waste in Bushbuckridge and the municipality is managing the situation. There is no designated dumping site in the area and people dump their household waste in the valleys, rivers, and bridges.
Single-use disposable nappies are becoming the biggest cause for concern because they take a long time to decompose. Disposable nappies are the biggest threat because people use them, and they are hard to dispose of, whereas the culture of using re-washable cloth nappies as in past has almost disappeared.
Another challenge is that people also dump rubble from constructions, dead dogs, and almost any other kind of waste you can think of.
The MPWC is engaging the Bushbuckridge Local Municipality (BLM) about the problem. Waste management at the municipal level is not happening, it has been some time now without a proper designated dumping site.
- The status of Nwaritsane River
The Nwaritsane River is recovering from the severe drought that started in 2016 in Bushbuckridge until late 2018, having a devastating impact on the environment. The Nwaritsane Dam, which is less than 50 meters from where we clean, was not overflowing, and we reported this to the Inkomti-Usuthu Catchment Management Agency (IUCMA). ICUMA then released 2000 litres of water per minute to make up for the ecological reserves.
MPWC has always been adamant that the establishment of large-scale industrial timber plantations, in particular gum trees which are alien to South Africa, impact badly on water downstream flow. They use more water (120 litres a day) than indigenous trees. If there were no gum trees in the Drakensberg Mountain, the water levels would be different from what it is now.
A group of 8 of us gathered at Masana Village on 26th August 2022 to do waste and river cleaning, and we found the state of the Nwaritsane River was better because the water is flowing strong and is clean.