ENVIRONMENT
Billions of rand being tossed by dumping waste in landfills
About R148bn is dumped by households and industry into landfills, says Council for Scientific and Industrial Research scientist
SA is throwing away about R148bn into a big hole every year by dumping almost 90% of its waste stream into municipal landfill dumps. This is the approximate monetary value of the "waste materials" dumped by households and industry into landfills and other disposal sites, according to Council for Scientific and Industrial Research senior scientist and waste researcher Linda Godfrey. Speaking on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum meeting in Durban on Thursday, Godfrey said about 51% of the country’s paper and packaging waste stream was now recycled, but SA was still far behind several countries in recycling, reusing, repairing or repurposing natural resources. About 90% of the country’s overall waste stream was still ending up in landfills, she said – even though studies suggested that this was tantamount to dumping R148bn worth of resources "into holes in the ground" every year. Godfrey’s comments follow an agreement signed by the EU and SA in September 2016, which focuses on ...
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