Local Government, Environmental Affairs and Development Planning

The Department is of the opinion that adequate measures have been put in place to improve the dumping of general waste in the province. During the course of the last five years in excess of 175 waste management licenses have been issued to waste facilities, which include material recovery, composting, waste to energy and waste disposal facilities.

This includes licences issued under the recent waste management licensing Outcome 10 project that this Department has engaged in with close collaboration with the National Department of Environmental Affairs and Municipalities within the Province.

Conditions contained in these licences make provision for the responsible management of general waste in the Province. The Province has an adequate number of authorised waste facilities available to legally manage general waste.

The Department ensures that the above-mentioned waste management licence conditions are enforced by regularly conducting high quality Departmental audits to ensure that municipalities adhere to the operating conditions of their licences. These audits also assist the Department in timeously identifying potential problems arising in municipalities.

The Department conducts an annual Greenest Municipality Competition where, as part of the criteria for assessment, municipal service areas are evaluated on various waste management services provided by municipalities in the Province. The prizes and prestige of winning this competition serve as incentives for municipalities to improve on their basic services, inclusive of the responsible management of waste.    The Department has established an illegal dumping task team which consists of municipal and departmental officials, where the objective of the task team is to identify and establish mechanisms that will prevent and/or minimise illegal dumping.

The Department has various recycling awareness programmes within schools and municipalities, which raise awareness on the reuse of waste and provide best practice methodologies in terms of waste management, with the aim to show there is value in waste and minimise the dumping of waste.

The Department is enforcing legal compliance in terms of the National Environmental Management Act 1998 (Act 107 of 1998) (NEMA) and the National Environmental Management Waste Act, 2008 (Act 59 of 2008) (NEMWA) legislation, that make the Municipal Managers accountable for carrying out essential services to the public.  In addition, the Department has managed to fill the funded vacant posts in the enforcement unit and is now in the position to react on and resolve cases of illegal dumping much faster.

The Department is part of the Steering Committee for the Western Cape Industrial Symbiosis Programme, spearheaded by GreenCape, where various industrial wastes are identified and made available for other uses within the same or different industries. This programme identifies legislative bottlenecks that lead to unnecessary dumping of waste and the Department plays a key role on advising and providing feedback to national legislative working groups.

The Department has appointed a service provider to conduct the Municipal Integrated Waste Management Infrastructure Project. This project will assess and cost the integrated waste management infrastructure needs of municipalities within the 5 Districts of the Western Cape in order to improve the management of waste infrastructure over the short, medium and long term. This project will also highlight the shortfalls or mechanisms within the municipal infrastructure that leads to dumping of general waste.