Why Your Bins Aren’t Being Emptied: Pikitup’s Landfill Crisis Explained

If your bins haven’t been collected, it’s not because Pikitup staff are on strike. It’s because there’s nowhere to put the trash.

Johannesburg has four large landfill sites servicing 12 depots across roughly 1,600km² of the city’s footprint.

Only two are fully operational.

The Problem

• Goudkoppies (Soweto) and Robinson Deep (Turffontein) are currently accepting residential waste

• Ennerdale and Marie Louise (Randburg) are only accepting small building rubble and soil until their capacities can be increased

The result: all Pikitup trucks from northern areas must drive to the south to dispose of waste, causing congestion at the sites and long turnaround times.

The Impact

Areas currently facing delays:

• Central Camp, Selby, and Orange Farm: Delayed due to “operational challenges”

• Roodepoort: Behind schedule; Pikitup working extra hours to normalise collection

• Midrand, Marlboro, Norwood, and Randburg: Trucks depositing waste at Goudkoppies and Robinson Deep, resulting in incomplete collection rounds and temporary service delays

The Protests

To add to the chaos, protestors have been disrupting servicesdemanding jobs, not opposing Pikitup.

The Randburg depot was shut last week for at least three days before law enforcement removed protestors.

Residents from Cosmo City, Honeydew, and Zandspruit were responsible for closing the depot and littering the streets with uncollected waste.

Pikitup clarified that its employees are not responsible for the waste being deliberately scattered in Cosmo City, as depicted on social media.

The city is now conducting a clean-up campaign in the area.

The Long-Term Crisis

Johannesburg’s landfill crisis has been known for years.

In May last year, the Gauteng provincial government stated it would need over R1 billion to optimise refuse collection and disposal.

AfriForum warned later that year that Johannesburg’s landfills would reach capacity by early 2028, with Tshwane and Ekurhuleni following near the turn of the decade.

Lambert de Klerk, Head of Environmental Affairs at AfriForum, said approvals for new landfills had stalled due to licensing delays, and government had failed to invest in modern waste processing technologies.

“We do not have a landfill problem; we have a management problem. This is a dereliction of duty and a direct threat to the well-being of millions of people.”

The Bottom Line

Your bins aren’t being emptied because the landfills are full. The trucks are driving across the city. The depots are congested. And the protests aren’t helping.

The crisis has been coming for years. Now it’s hereand there’s no quick fix.

{Source: Citizen}

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