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The management of
both general and hazardous waste is an environmental issue
causing concern globally as well as in South Africa and more
specifically, Mpumalanga shows the need for a plan of action to
deal with the management of waste in the province. There has been a
shift in South Africa's waste management strategy from control to
prevention (White Paper on Integrated Pollution and Waste Management
for South Africa, RSA 2000) and this focus is emphasised by the
fact that municipalities now have to prepare an Integrated Waste
Management Plan (IWMP) as part of their operational strategies of
their Integrated Development Plans (IDP) (DPLG, 2001).
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| Waste Production & Disposal |
Mpumalanga province contributes 9% (3 831
000 cubic metres) to South
Africa's general waste stream and has
the third highest per capita waste generation, 1.37 cubic metres per person
per year, which is higher than the national average (DWAF,
1998; Stats SA, 2002). The following indicators were used to reflect
waste
production and management:
There is currently sufficient landfill
airspace in the province, although certain regions may experience
shortfalls in the near future. The provincial total projected
landfill lifespan is 27 years, that is assuming that some of the
existing landfills can be upgraded to meet the DWAF minimum
requirements for landfills. The escarpment, however, faces an
immediate crisis with only 2 years of landfill lifespan remaining in
the region. This is indicated through the Available
Landfill Lifespan
indicator.
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| Waste Reduction, Re-Use &
Recycling |
Information on the volumes of waste re-used,
reduced and recycled is not readily available in South Africa due to
the current lack of national and provincial waste information
systems. Furthermore, it is difficult to ascertain what trends are
evident in the province with regards to recycling of waste in the
absence of data.
Despite this lack of data, information
on waste recycling was sought from various recycling agents in
Mpumalanga. From an estimated 20 recycling agents identified in the
province, only eight were willing to provide information in their
recycling figures and of these three provided this information.
Figures of the various materials and volumes recycled by these
agents is available under
the following indicator:
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| Hazardous Waste |
Mpumalanga is the largest producer of
hazardous waste in the country and is responsible for just over a
third of all hazardous waste produced in South Africa, largely due
to the fertilizer manufacturing sector. Of the 3 416 973 cubic
metres of hazardous waste produced in Mpumalanga, less than 0.1%
actually reaches a hazardous waste site, the remainder is disposed
of on-site or in some other way (DWAF, 1998). The Total
hazardous Waste Produced per sector per year
indicator is used to monitor this.
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| Sanitation |
The level of service provision with regard
to sanitation in Mpumalanga is evidence of the rural nature of the
province with most district municipalities indicating that pit
latrines are the most common form of sanitation in the majority of
households. Only Gert Nsibande District Municipality has a higher
number of flush toilets than pit latrines, and while Nkangala
District Municipality has a high number of flush toilets, pit
latrines remain more common. If these pit latrines are unlined
structures, groundwater contamination could occur (Bester &
Austin, 1997) and this is particularly a problem in areas where
groundwater is used as a water source (Wilkinson, 2003).
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