Concerned Enoch Mgijima Local Municipality bosses have implored communities in Komani to show respect for the dead and stop using cemeteries as illegal dumping sites.
This after the municipality was forced to despatch a team to clean up the Mlungisi Cemetery at the weekend.
Municipal spokesperson Lonwabo Kowa said the municipality had been forced to act after finding that the cemetery, often regarded as a sacred place in many cultures, was now used for illegal dumping.
“Construction machinery had to be sent to the site after immense irresponsible dumping was discovered.
“The municipality pleads with community members to refrain from dumping at the cemetery,” he said.
He said almost every week, the municipality found foreign objects including construction rubble dumped in the cemeteries.
The municipality owns nine cemeteries across its boundaries, with three in Komani.
“This is unfortunate as it does not only affect the environment but also families who had buried their loved ones.
“Cemeteries are fenced but intruders continue to dump nonetheless.”
We have been complaining for a long time about the sad state of that cemetery.
— Komani resident Aphiwe Ngcayicibi
He said the Mlungisi Cemetery was not the only one affected by illegal dumping, though it was the most affected due to it being close to people’s homes in the township.
“The municipality pleads with the people to respect cemeteries and the dead who are buried there,” Kowa said.
Komani resident and businessman Sabelo Jayiya said many spaces in the area, particularly in townships like Nomzamo, had turned into illegal dumping zones.
Illegal dumping was also happening along the public road between Komani and Cacadu and it was suspected that people who owned cars were probably behind it.
“It [illegal dumping] is a big thing in some parts. I do not understand, because no-one would ride in a taxi with plastic bags full of thrash,” Jayiya said.
“The funny thing is that the route is located at the same distance as the designated landfill site where waste is dumped formally.”
In some residential areas, people were not even afraid to dump their trash illegally near their own houses.
However, Jayiya said that due to poverty and hunger as well as unemployment, some desperate people often scavenged for food inside refuse bags before they were collected by the municipality’s refuse trucks.
Some were civil enough to properly close the refuse bags afterwards, but others unfortunately scattered everything on the ground.
When municipal rubbish collectors came, they just took the refuse bags without picking up the littered trash.
“Maybe because of that, other people end up resorting to illegally dumping the waste if it’s not picked up.
“But still, in some areas, these illegal dumping zones are some distance from the houses and you wonder, why would one opt to walk that distance instead of leaving the trash next to their gates to be collected by the municipality?”
He said in some instances, municipal refuse collectors refused to take refuse bags filled with grass when people cleaned their yards.
“As a result, some just opt to throw it away anywhere.”
But Aphiwe Ngcayicibi, who hails from Komani but is now based in Johannesburg, said he had visited the cemetery about two weeks ago and saw no illegal dumping in the Mlungisi Cemetery where his child was buried.
Instead, he saw that the cemetery was unkempt.
He claimed the municipality had only rushed in to clean up recently after he raised concern about the state of the cemetery on social networks.
He said there was no proper fencing and animals were able to easily access the facility, turning it into a grazing field.
“We have been complaining for a long time about the sad state of that cemetery. I was there recently and the place was just despicable.
“They [municipality] are lying, that place is not maintained at all.
“They are the ones who do not respect our loved ones who are buried there.
“They only jump up, clean the place so that they can post photos on their social network pages,” he said.
Daily Dispatch
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