15 October 2007

MASSIVE new underground bins for the disposal of waste and rubbish have been introduced to the Johannesburg inner city.

The five cubic metre, steel containers are encased within a metal frame and then sunk inside a concrete sleeve in the ground.

Pedestrians, street cleaners and informal traders will be able to deposit their waste into the bins attached to the containers at street level.

When the containers are full, specially adapted Pikitup trucks will lift them out of the ground, empty the containers and replace them.

The entire cleaning operation takes about ten minutes and will be performed in the evenings after peak traffic hours.

Speaking at the launch of the Sisonke Project, Amos Masondo, the Executive Mayor of Johannesburg said this is the first time this modern technology is utilised in South Africa.

"This is part of our comprehensive efforts to clean up the Johannesburg Inner City and other CBDs and thus create a better environment for residents, visitors and the business community, ranging from big business to informal traders," he said.

The Sisonke project is a R5.5 million initiative co-sponsored by the Department of Science and Technology and Pikitup.

"Effective waste management strategies contribute to the creation of a cleaner, less wasteful and more sustainable society," he said.

"What we are launching here today is not a total solution but a good beginning, if this pilot proves successful, it will be rolled out to other parts of the city and possibly to other municipalities," said Derek Hanekom, Deputy Minister of Science and Technology.

The 20 underground bins will be installed at strategic locations in the City, 17 in the CBD, Joubert Park, Hillbrow and Yeoville as well as three in Alexandra.

The sites have been chosen on the basis of the volume of traffic and population densities.

As the project grows it will be expanded to other busy parts of the city such as taxi ranks, sports stadiums or shopping malls where many people converge and where there is a pattern of high volumes of waste.

The bins provide an alternative to the more traditional wheelie or pole-mounted bins which fill up rapidly resulting in the garbage landing on the ground.

Mayor Masondo referred to the fact that Pikitup removes more than 1 800 tons of litter from the streets of Johannesburg every week.

More than a third of this waste is generated by businesses with the remainder divided between domestic refuse and street cleaning.

He said it is quite clear that residents and visitors cannot continue with established patterns of waste generation and waste disposal.

New technical solutions should be supported by "dramatic changes in the behaviour" of people who are the generators of waste.

Landfill space in the city is decreasing and there is a scarcity of available land on which to develop new sites.

Mayor Masondo said the street prefects will become "visible extensions of the broader society where everybody takes equal responsibility for their environment, for their neighbourhoods and eventually for the entire Johannesburg."

Source: BuaNews