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 following anecdote is an example of the perceptions people in suburban areas have about waste reclaimers.
Zelda and Riaan explain the pros and cons
Zelda and Riaan are in their late 60s and live in a suburb outside Pretoria. Generally, they have few complaints about the efficiency of the weekly municipal garbage collections: “The trucks are very punctual. It is very seldom they don’t arrive on the same day. It’s only if there is a strike that they don’t come.” But ever since the large landfill near Atteridgeville closed down, they have noticed that people often come with loads of building rubble and dump it along the road close to the settlement of Laudium, a few kilometres to the north.
“It is a systems failure – if there was a convenient place, they would take it there. People have lost faith in the municipality so they don’t take action to report the dumping.”
Zelda and Riaan talk about the waste reclaimers who move through the suburb once a week on bin day, saying they divert waste away from landfills:
“Lots of waste pickers come here early before the garbage truck arrives. Normally, if you put out three or four bags of rubbish, by the time they finish there is only one bag going to the truck. There must be incentives for the waste pickers because they separate the waste and it brings them income. If it weren’t for them, we would have so much more waste going to the landfill. So, they do a great service.”
But residents like them do have concerns about the presence of waste reclaimers in the suburb:
“With waste pickers can come crime, because they are very vigilant, and there can be opportunities for them to steal things. For example, someone we know left the gate open on bin collection day and a child’s bike was stolen. It was later found and the people had repainted it and put a basket on it and were selling it as an ornamental flower pot stand. They can also become a nuisance because if they collect in a certain area they tend to settle there and form a ‘squatter camp’. And there are no amenities for them there.”