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by Ayanda Njemla
05 February 2010
FOLLOWING the municipality’s victory as the 2nd Greenest Town in a competition that was hosted by OR Tambo District Municipality last November, KSD local municipality last week received 80 trolly bins from OR Tambo as part of the prize, together with a silver cup which was already handed over. These bins were handed over at Freedom Square, in front of KSD’s offices on behalf of OR Tambo’s environmental department by Siyakubango Buso who said that “they will help bring service delivery to the community”.
“With the assessments carried out after the municipality made it to the 2nd place, it came to our notice that there is a huge shortage of waste bins that are easily moved around as they have wheels,” said Buso. He said the competition is aimed at motivating and encouraging municipalities to keep their areas green and environmentally friendly and because the competition is annual, municipalities will strive to improve, every year.
On the receiving end was KSD Mayor Siyakholwa Mlamli, who conveyed the gratitude of the Councill at large and assured that the bins will be used effectively in all the areas that are in need, including Coffee Bay and the business centres. “We will firstly draft a policy because these bins will be rented, with the target being towns and business centres as well as tourist areas and hopefully, by June when we do our budget, we will have more of these bins,” said the Mayor. He said that with these bins operating on chips, they will be easily tracked and won’t be easily vandalised.
Among other programmes that the municipality has in line with this Greenest Town competition and with endevours to make it better next year, they have allocated volunteers working every Sunday evening and they are also buying 2 compact sweeper trucks to help sweep at night and will also intensify the recycling of bags. They also have a partnership with Johannesburg City Park where they have resolved to plant trees all over the area. KSD community services director, Luvuyo Maka, said OR Tambo is spot-on in terms of introducing these bins, because using recycled bags in business centres and accomodation places is a challenge since they generate more waste a day so the trolley bins will assist. “Trolley bins are easily cleared, just like the steel bins that were installed on the streets where you just align with the recycled bags to dump the waste,” said Maka. The Municipality also has greening programmes, including the newly constructed Waterfall Park which is made mainly for children and newly revamped Queens Park(Savoy Park) which is open for everyone. The municipality has been supported by the Department of Environmental Affairs through Indalo Yethu, with 100 people, 64 from Mthatha and the rest from Coffee Bay and Mqanduli, and they will be part
of a two and a half year programme. |
