Waste is piling up and we don’t know enough to deal with it

Proper management of waste is not possible without accurate data on how much waste there is and what is being done with it, say experts. Archive photo: Steve Kretzmann

• Almost 2,000 waste disposal, handling, recycling and export facilities are registered on the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment waste information system.
• Although they are required to report their waste activities and quantities, a 2022 study found only a third of them, including municipalities managing landfills, were doing so.
• The lack of reporting has significant impacts on policy development, planning for waste facilities such as landfills, and the development of small businesses in the waste sector.

The amount of waste going to landfills or polluting the environment is hugely underestimated due to a lack of reliable data, putting South Africa “at risk of turning into a wasteland”.

This is the warning issued by the Recycling and Economic Development Initiative of South Africa (REDISA) which has stated that the official data on waste in South Africa is “variously unreliable, inadequate, outdated and contradictory”.

REDISA executive committee member Chris Crozier says this has led to a “crisis in environmental policymaking” due to decisions being based on “bad data”.

Crozier said the organisation had looked at data provided by the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment (DFFE), which included the National Waste Information Baseline published in 2012, the State of Waste Report published in 2018, and the statistics gathered by the SA Waste Information Centre (SAWIC). But he said the information was so incomplete it had “no value for most planning purposes”.

SAWIC is the site which hosts the SA Waste Information System on which organisations that generate, recover, treat, dispose or export waste are required by national regulations to register and regularly submit reports. This includes municipalities operating landfills.

The Waste Information System came into effect in 2013, but a 2022 study by Master’s student Masilo Sehaswana at North-West University found only a third of all registered users on the system submitted their required reports.

The study by Sehaswana, who is a deputy director at DFFE, found that the Waste Information System was failing “to produce credible and timely information on waste generation and management in South Africa”.

Crozier has said the SAWIC data (gathered from required reporting by waste management facilities to the Waste Information System) was so incomplete as to be meaningless.

He said according to SAWIC, only 5,000 tonnes of plastic waste ended up in landfills last year. “We believe it should be more than 100 times that amount.”

Inflated recycling rates

Crozier said claims of recycling rates are also hugely inflated. The State of Waste Report claims that South Africa had a 43% recycling rate for plastics, which would make South Africa a global leader. The claim is based on plastics recycled measured against plastics available for recycling. But, said Crozier, if the volume of recycled plastic (314,000 tonnes) was measured against the amount of plastic manufactured (1.8-million tonnes), the real plastics recycling ratio is only 18%.

Similarly, he said, the State of Waste Report put the glass recycling figure at 78%, when the real recycling rate was likely 32%.

Disposed of tyres were also undercounted. He said the DFFE’s figure for waste tyres had remained unchanged at 170,266 tonnes since 2019, but the actual amount was between 254,000 and 259,000 tonnes. This could be fairly accurately calculated by subtracting the universal rate of wear for tyres from the mass of tyres put on the market as reported by National Treasury.

REDISA CEO Hermann Erdmann said the lack of accurate information resulted in flawed environmental policies with “terrible consequences”.

“And in the end, people pay the price, with their health suffering,” said Erdmann.

He said workable recycling plans also can’t be implemented, which meant small enterprises in the waste sector were not developed.

“For the past few years, transporters, micro-collectors and depot owners have suffered immense financial setbacks because of the incompetence in environmental management.”

Policy implications

Erdmann said if the DFFE did not fix the “data crisis” and continued to implement “deeply flawed policy”, South Africa would become a dumping ground for waste tyres, glass and plastic.

Suzan Oelofse, principal researcher in sustainability, economics and waste at the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), said the Waste Information System did not contain enough accurate data because waste information regulations are not being enforced. There are also data reporting errors and a lack of monitoring, verification and correction.

Oelefse, who was involved in drawing up the National Waste Information Baseline used to inform subsequent State of Waste Reports, said accurate data was needed to track the effectiveness of policy over time and measure trends.

“If the trends indicate that the policy is not effective, then it requires further investigation as ineffective policy may be a result of slow implementation or lack of enforcement, as is the case with the Waste Information System regulations.”

The impact “on the ground” can be flawed investment decisions, such as investing in inappropriate technology, or over or under-sized infrastructure development for waste facilities.

“Furthermore, municipalities must plan ahead to ensure that the required waste services can be provided to a growing (or declining) population, and that certain waste streams are diverted from landfills. The type of alternative waste treatment technologies that could be considered needs to be informed by data on the types and volumes of waste generated.

“Once everyone that should report data into the Waste Information System is reporting, the data void will be filled. Then we need verification of the data to ensure that we have accurate data on this system.”

Sehaswana had noted a lack of equipment for determining waste quantities (such as scales or weighbridges), high staff turnover at waste management facilities, a lack of capacity in provinces, and a lack of access to the internet, to name a few.

“The findings also clearly show that the Waste Information System challenges and the dire need for system improvements can neither be ignored nor postponed,” he stated.

DFFE communication and advocacy chief director Peter Mbelengwa said there were 1,832 waste facilities registered on the Waste Information System which are required by law to report their waste quantities on the system, and the provincial systems in Gauteng and the Western Cape.

Mbelengwa said quarterly reminders were sent to facilities that failed to report and pre-compliance notices were sent to those who did not respond. He said “some” facilities “have been taken to compliance and enforcement processes, including prosecution”.

No details on the number of prosecutions or what this had entailed were provided.

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