Cape Town neighbourhood is buried in rubbish

Rubbish piling up in Tsunami informal settlement, Cape Town, on 15 November. Photos: Vincent Lali.

Rubbish in Tsunami informal settlement on 17 December 2024.

Uncollected rubbish is piling up and rotting in containers and on the ground in Tsunami informal settlement in Delft, Cape Town. About 2,000 households have to live with the disgusting smell and the rats, flies and maggots attracted by the garbage.

Ithalomso Waste Management stopped collecting rubbish last year after extortionists demanded money, according to community leader Lindikhaya Maxongo.

In October the City employed six cleaners through the public works programme (EPWP). Yet when we visited on 15 November, the area was as filthy as ever.

“It looks like we are not working,” one of the cleaners said. “But the area remains dirty because the City often doesn’t send a truck to collect rubbish after we have stuffed it into rubbish bags … Kids open the bags and scatter the rubbish around.”

Maxongo said there are no supervisors to complain to “when the cleaners don’t do their jobs properly”.

Maxongo said the failure to collect garbage has led to more illegal dumps.

He said the EPWP workers drop off City supplied blue rubbish bags once a week for households to use, “but most residents don’t get them because the workers don’t go deep into our area”.

Nonkululeko Nombewu said she had to use her child’s grant money to buy a roll of rubbish bags for R30 at Shoprite. She said waste pickers empty the full rubbish bags and then use the bags to gather tins and recyclables.

The City apologised for the month it took to respond to us.

The media office said, “The City is working on recruiting the full required staff complement through the EPWP process and this will ensure improved level of cleanliness.”

“The City has resolved to appoint EPWP workers at the same ratio as the cleaning company that withdrew its services due to extortion threats.”

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