Illegal dumping is becoming a very serious challenge in Musina. This was revealed by a member of Musina Municipality's executive committee, Cllr Nkele Milanzi. Milanzi was addressing community members who had volunteered to clean several illegal dumping terrains around Nancefield Township last Thursday.
She said that taking the lead in cleaning up these areas was important for the municipality, so that ordinary people could easily understand that illegal dumping was a serious health risk.
She told the volunteers that the municipality had a suitable dumping site, but she could not understand why people kept on dumping waste everywhere. "Despite limited resources, we do our best to make sure that refuse is collected at households at all times. We have also provided skip bins around various areas in the township for our people to throw their waste in. But it is very disturbing when you see a person opting to throw waste on the ground instead of depositing it in the provided skip bins. It should always be our normal practice that we do not just throw waste all over our habitat."
She said besides causing diseases, illegal dumping was very dangerous to the environment and it also turned tourists away. "If our area is clean, it attracts tourists, thereby boosting the economy of our municipality. Tourists will never want to visit an area that is not clean. Besides the tourism point of view, we will suffer the consequences because our health system will not be able to cope due to the diseases caused by pollution."
One of the volunteers who took part in the cleaning campaign is Takalani Rambau. She said: "As a caring citizen, I am also very worried and concerned about the mushrooming of illegal dumps in our township."