“I am on my way to the emergency room with my daughter because she is struggling to breathe. She has a high fever so I think it has escalated to something else,” says Leándri van der Berg, a resident who lives at Jan Wilkens Street, just a few meters from the landfill site in the northern parts of Bloemfontein.
Residents in Bayswater woke up to a cloud of smoke that, according to them, entered their homes through windows and doors. Residents in surrounding areas as far as Dan Pienaar were also affected by the aftermath of the smoke. It could allegedly also be smelled as far as Langenhoven Park.
Van der Berg says that at about 01:30 she was woken by the sound of her daughter gasping for air due to the copious amounts of smoke in her home. On Wednesday morning, she told Bloemfontein Courant that the smell of smoke still smothered her home.
“As I am sitting here, I see the smoke and the fire, it is really horrible. If they responded when we started complaining three days ago and didn’t just tell us they would keep an eye on it, this would not have happened. They lied to us when we started developing here, because we have had this property for almost 10 years now and they told us it [the dumping site] was going to be closed,” says Van der Berg.
The concerned parent said the time frame of the closure was not confirmed when her family moved to the area.
The councillor in Ward 44 in Mangaung since 2016, Selmé Pretorius, told Bloemfontein Courant that the fire was in fact not at the landfill site. It was a veld fire next to the site. Despite that, residents in the proximity of the landfill site have raised concerns that this is a common occurrence that takes place at a different spot on the hill each time.
Pretorius says she received several complaints about the fire on Monday night. The team from the metro was on standby in case the fire spread to the landfill site.
Another resident, who chooses to remain anonymous, says that “when a person moves to Bayswater you would expect the area to be somewhat decent and not have ‘basic’ issues such as landfills and burning rubbish, given the reputation of the area. However, to my dismay, within the first few months that I’ve been living here, I’ve had to clean ash out of almost the entire house. When the landfill burns, it sometimes spreads to the field behind the complex. As a result, the smell of burning bushes and trash fills the house with those noxious fumes. This will obviously have an impact on my sinuses. One can only imagine the effect this can have on those with respiratory problems.”
“On a lighter note, yet still serious, I doubt anyone wants to show up to work smelling like a dumpster fire,” he adds.
“Yes. We have frequent complaints regarding the landfill site. We have had numerous fires, releasing toxic gasses and smoke. The smells are sometimes unbearable. Whenever operations are interrupted and the site is not functioning, residents dump outside the gates close to houses and complexes. This causes frustration (which is understandable) to residents and property owners. It also has an adverse effect on property values in the area,” Pretorius adds.
According to Pretorius the break-outs do not happen often anymore, measures have been put into place to deal with the fires more effectively. “The matter was addressed in the past over and over again. The DA submitted a motion on how to better manage these problems,” she says.
“In the latest IDP for the next five years, the closing, upgrading, and refurbishment/ rehabilitation of the landfill site are included. The timeframe as per the IDP is roughly 2025. There is an amount of about R22 million budgeted over the next four years. As mentioned this is per the IDP and included the closure, refurbishment, and rehabilitation,” Pretorius concludes.
Bloemfontein Courant visited the site on two occasions to check on the severity of the fire and was then prompted to follow up on the progress of the landfill site being removed, the fires that have happened in the past, and concerns that residents may or may not have. An inquiry was further sent to the municipality without a response at the time of print.
Gypseenia Lion
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