In South Africa, the majority of waste ends up in landfills as mixed waste, while the biggest waste collection backlogs exist in rural areas and informal settlements. Obstacles to providing a sustainable waste collection service within these settlements include: i) Limited road access and infrastructure: In certain areas, road infrastructure is limited and the collection vehicles cannot reach all the dwellings. Where road infrastructure exists, the streets are often inaccessible to conventional waste collection vehicles due to steep slopes and narrow roads with sharp curves, deep potholes and dongas. ii) Extensive travel distances: Transportation costs in rural settings where dwellings are sparsely spread over long distances impede a weekly waste collection service, thereby contributing to rampant illegal dumping. Illegal dumping is one of the most common problems in South Africa, affecting both big and small municipalities alike. The practice of illegal dumping has huge impacts on the environment through contamination of land and pollution of water bodies. These play major negative roles on the health of the surrounding community.

 

Our project, Project Clean Alaska, hopes to alleviate the rampant illegal dumping which occurs within Alaska, Mamelodi, play a positive role in decreasing the large quantities of waste ending up in landfills in and around Mamelodi while also helping create a safer and healthier environment as a whole.