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The Waste Management Officers’ Khoro is an annual conference which the Department launched on 15-16 September 2010 in Boksburg, Gauteng province.
The Khoro aims to bring together all waste management officers (WMOs) nationally in an effort to deal with the implementation of the National Environmental Management Waste Act, waste Regulations and related legislation.
Some of the progress made from the action plan that was drawn last year from the Khoro include: the development of the model by law to assist municipalities to regulate waste management; the training of about 200 waste disposal site managers; the training of councillors will take before the end of March 2012.
Waste Management Officers are designated in terms of section 10 of the Waste Act as coordinators of waste management activities at national, provincial and local government level. This provides a network of officials with waste expertise and contact points from each Municipality.
These are not necessarily new appointments, but officials already managing this function. The Minister has already designated the National Waste Management Officer, who is the Chief Director responsible for Pollution and Waste Management within the Department of Environmental Affairs and some provinces and Municipalities have already designated Waste Management Officers. At this stage, we still need to consolidate numbers and establish a national database of all these Waste Management Officers.
The theme for 2011 is “Accelerating service delivery and creating jobs in waste”. This is informed by the fact that over 40% of households in this country are not receiving a basic level of services and in some instances; services are inconsistent and not sustained.
In recognition of the need to create sustainable jobs and a need to extend services to the unserviced areas, government need to collectively look at bottlenecks or impediments; whether administrative or institutional in nature; and come up with workable solutions. This is why we look at fiscal mechanisms for waste services, sound budgeting, labour intensive models for providing services, and compliance to other requirements of the Waste Act such as development of Integrated Waste Management Plans.
It is also important to incorporate recycling into waste collection systems and importantly; to separate waste at source (point of generation). We talk of diversion of waste from landfills, as we know, we are running out of landfill air space and most of the waste land filled is recyclable. Instead of wasting the resource by landfilling, it is better to divert it to either recycling, reuse or energy recovery. There is reuse and recycling of industrial waste already undertaken by the private sector mainly. The focus of this conference is on diversion of municipal waste and it goes with public education and awareness. Municipalities still have to build capacity to deal with the diversion but most importantly, to introduce waste collection systems in areas where they are non-existent.
The people who can afford to pay for the service must pay and Municipalities have to strengthen revenue collection systems, and also ensure that the services are also provided to indigent household who cannot afford to pay.
The Department has facilitated the development of the policy framework for waste services, including the National Policy for the Provision of Refuse Removal Services to the Indigent Households, National Domestic Waste Collection Standards, Draft Waste Sector Plan, and we are currently developing Model waste management bylaws, the National Waste Management Strategy, the guidelines for the development of Integrated Waste Management Plans to mention a few. We also conduct capacity building programmes such as the training of landfill site managers and will also be working with SALGA to conduct an orientation programme for new Counsellors, focusing on waste services. We are also funding some projects including the Mafikeng pilot project on waste collection and the EcoTowns programme which is implemented by Indalo Yethu.
Waste service must be one of the top service delivery agenda, as it is a basic service. It must be incorporated in Human Settlement planning and development and this includes planning for transportation, receptacles, waste disposal sites and so forth.
We are working with the Department of Cooperative Governance and StatsSA to collect data on waste services in an effort to measure progress and how as a country, we are improving this service. We want to consolidate efforts from provincial departments as well to ensure that support to local government is provided in a coordinated manner.
Later today, we will be having a round-table discussion with all the MECs in attendance, Mayors, MPs and officials from National Treasury and COGTA, to discuss practical support to Local government. We will ensure that all the ideas and practical solution which are already conducted by other provinces are documented and communicated to all other partners who are not in attendance, and we will also further discuss these at others relevant forums. By next year when we have the 3rd Waste Khoro, we will look at progress.