Despite calls by residents for the local Council to provide a dumping area nearby for extra waste when bins are full and to dump building rubble and rubbish not permitted in the normal black bins,
residents in the area who want to follow the by-laws and keep Laudium clean, say that the Council does not seem to be interested in their pleas.
This follows the ongoing problem of rubbish being dumped illegally in various areas of Ward 61. The Laudium Sun continuously receives complaints concerning illegal dumping in the area. From complaints of dumping in the CBD, to Emerald Street to 19th Ave, to the old Military Road, the complaints continue. In one of the latest complaints of illegal dumping, Babar Azeem the owner of a shop on Delhi Str, near the Military Road in Laudium Ext 3, told the Laudium Sun, “I have been complaining continuously about the dump that is right across the street from my shop. Every day there is a new person dumping here and the smell that comes from this dump is really making us sick. We even suffer from stomach cramps. I have personally reported this matter to the municipality many times and all they say in response that my complaint is being escalated. How many times are we going to complain of the same thing. We are fed up because we opened shops here in order to make a living and these people living in the area just come and dump here and harm our businesses.” Shabaz Mohamed who also owns a tuckshop on Delhi Str told the Laudium Sun, “We are tired of the people who come and dump here. We try to take pictures of these people dumping so that their faces could be shown in the Laudium Sun, but when they see us they threaten us.
There are kids who walk past the dump from school and it is extremely unhealthy. The dump is so bad that there is no place to walk on the side way of the street. Children and even adults can get bumped by cars as they are forced to walk on the street which is dangerous. It is time that the council opens a dumping site nearby so that people do not have anymore excuses of illegal dumping.” Termus Maziboko who works at
Mega Hardware told the Laudium Sun, “We cannot even sit outside because the dump fumes are so strong and now that it is getting hot the fumes are even stronger than before, we even see rats that are the size of cats running around.”