Good Morning
Today we are here in KwaMashu to handover the R7,5 million Buy Back Centre and Composting Facility project to eThekwini Metropolitan Municipality as part of the Environmental Month celebrations.
This year we celebrate the Environmental Month under the theme: Think, Eat, Save.
In late 2012, Statistics SA issued the outcomes of the population census and it emerged that our population has increased to around 53 million people.
This increase has a direct impact on food production and packaging. The relevance of the population growth to environment is that households would buy more food resulting in increased tons of waste, especially from packaging.
In the past, the common practice was to dump waste at the landfill site without caring about the consequences. The reality some of us failed to understand then was that more land would be needed for dumping waste.
However, unlike the population which grows, the size of land remains constant. In fact, it gets reduced as more agricultural, residential, industrial land is needed for the increased demand of commodities.
As government, we introduced the idea of Buy-Back Center to reduce waste which gets dumped into the landfill site. The idea of Buy-Back Center presents a win-win situation for everyone involved. Anyone can collect recyclable material and be paid for it, recycled material which have reached the end of their life span are sent to parent companies for cleaning and repackaging, households use some material in various forms and the environment also benefit because less resources are harvested for creating recyclable material.
I am impressed with the KwaMashu Buy-Back Center and Composting facility project, it justifies the R7, 5 Million we spent on it. In line with the approved plan, I can safely say the project will address objectives such as waste management, recycling and composting. It was implemented in cooperation with Durban Solid Waste Environmental Education Officers.
The project deliverables are: Security fence, site works, sewer & water reticulation, Steel structure (Recycling), ablutions, office space, asphalt surfacing, wire mesh, rehabilitation of concrete working slab (Composting site), equipment at recycling, chipper at composting & equipment at composting facility.
The project has to date provided employment to 100 people around KwaMashu and its implementation has promoted the idea of SMME development. The contractor appointed for construction on site was an SMME and has been supported throughout project implementation.
We anticipate even more good news because staffing in the project site will create long-term employment opportunities which we hope will benefit the local people.
Ladies and gentlemen, it gives me great pleasure to handover the KwaMashu Buy Back Centre and Composting Facility project to eThekwini Metropolitan Municipality.
I thank you.
