Discarded used baby nappies become health hazard at Itsani

When the community of Itsani Tshisahulu, outside Thohoyandou, decided to designate a few central points where refuse, particularly used baby nappies, could be collected, this was for a good cause. Thulamela’s municipal trucks relieved the burden of residents’ having to dig holes to dump these used nappies by collecting them fortnightly. However, the residents claim that the municipality simply stopped servicing these pickup points, leaving a mess of scattered dirty nappies everywhere, and now they fear that these are starting to pose a health hazard to them.

A resident who lives next to the pickup point, next to the Excella Spaza Shop, said the situation had been like this since last year. “Our health is at stake here. The municipal trucks used to pick up these Pampers once every two weeks. But then, all of a sudden, the trucks stopped coming, and it has been almost a year now. We fear that this will escalate to diseases, as there are Pampers scattered everywhere now. This is a time bomb waiting to explode. The sooner the municipality takes care of this, the better, otherwise, we might soon have a cholera outbreak here,” he said.

But community leader Mr Michael Gumula said the community was partly to blame for this. “Our people broke the wooden structure where the disposable nappies were stored, and that is what led to this mess. As the leadership, we have decided to pick up all the nappies and find a way of disposing of them. We do not want to place our community at risk of contracting diseases,” he said.

Thulamela Municipality’s waste and environment manager, Mr Simon Madi, said he was not aware of the situation as no one had ever reported it. “This is news to me. We have not received any complaints about this, and our trucks are out there serving the community. We will, as a matter of urgency, attend to the problem,” he said.

Date:15 December 2023

By: Elmon Tshikhudo

Elmon Tshikhudo started off as a photographer. He developed an interest in writing and started submitting articles to local as well as national publications. He became part of the Limpopo Mirror family in 2005 and was a permanent part of the news team until 2019.

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