Every week, South African households throw away tonnes of organic waste. Most of it ends up in landfills, where it rots. Lumped with other stuff that people throw out, like packaging, it smoulders, leaches and releases methane at dangerous levels. The waste sector...
Waste in South Africa is growing at a faster pace than the systems meant to stop and manage it. Landfills are filling up fast, while recycling struggles to keep up. The problem is not a lack of activity but lack of alignment. South Africa already has clear regulatory...
Community-focused programmes that connect people in underserved areas with the ocean help spark a real passion for marine life — and a deeper understanding of how our everyday waste on land ends up in our oceans, flowing from stormwater drains and waterways. Beach...
A Bhekisisa Centre for health journalism investigation has found that residents are getting sick and struggling to breathe because of the air quality around an illegal dump site in Kya Sand, north west of Johannesburg. Residents from informal settlements and gated...
Charles' story Charles is a 35 year old man who grew up in Soweto. He attended a local high school, passing matric except for his first language (isiZulu). He did not have any opportunity to study further because his family lacked the finances to support him. Charles...
The Earthly Touch Foundation builds classrooms out of eco-bricks for a local social outreach project in Diepsloot. With a team of experienced designers and builders, Earthly Touch Foundation has created or had donations of more than 60 000 eco-bricks, which are 2...
In leafy suburbs with regular waste removal, residents are generally happy with the services they are getting. But they are, however, suspicious about the intentions of the different waste reclaimers that frequent their neighbourhoods on rubbish collection days. The...
Saulsville is a township on the western extremes of the Tshwane metropolitan municipality. It was established under the apartheid government’s Group Areas Act to house Tsonga and Venda-speaking migrants with permits to work in the city of Pretoria. Saulsville’s black...
The stories offered here are an expression of how some people in the Karoo have come to think about the connections between rubbish, ill-health and their relationship to the land. It draws on local oral histories of land and health that were collected as part of a...