CHAPTER 5 RESULTS
5.2 Awareness of the Waste Management Act
5.2.1 The NGO Sector
All the NGO‟s interviewed were aware of the new waste management policy. Groundwork and DUCT had become aware of the new policy directly through their advocacy work whilst BESG and A Rocha South Africa had attended public hearings organised by national
government prior to the adoption of the Waste Act. Groundwork has been involved in advocating for national waste management policy development for a number of years and is currently participating in consultative processes aimed at developing the national waste management strategy. BESG, DUCT and A Rocha have been involved in waste management policy advocacy processes within the MM for a number of years. All the NGO‟s raised the importance of educating the public about integrated waste management practices in order to ensure smooth implementation of the new policy.
5.2.2 The MM Waste Management Services Sector
Senior management of the WMU and LSU indicate that they are aware of the Waste Act having attended municipal consultations organised by the DEA of Environmental Affairs over the past two years. Supervisory level staff interviewed who work within the refuse collection section, the KPCA and the landfill site report that no events have been organised by senior management of the WMU and the LSU which were aimed at increasing their awareness of the Waste Act. The interviews for this research took place almost a year after the Waste Act was approved in Parliament and senior management of both the WMU and the LSU confirmed in their interviews that supervisory and operational level staff had not been exposed to the provisions of the Waste Act. When probed into the possible reasons for not undertaking such a process, senior management cited the lack of time and the value of such processes given that operational level staff merely implemented decisions taken by higher levels. All senior managers identified the need to educate members of the public on the
changes in waste management services that will eventually occur as a result of the Waste Act.
96 5.2.3 The MM Political Sector
According to a political representative interviewed who is a member of the Executive Committee of the MM, no presentation on the Waste Act has ever been made to the
Executive Committee which is legally the most powerful political decision making structure within the municipality. The Executive Committee meets weekly within the MM to consider issues in terms of Section 44 of the Municipal Structure Act which provides that an Executive Committee is the principal committee of the municipal council which must oversee service delivery to communities and monitor the management of the municipality‟s administration in the implementation of council strategies, policies, programmes and budgets (RSA, 1998b).
According to political representatives interviewed who are members of the Community Services Portfolio Committee which is meant to provide political oversight over waste
management services, the first time that the provisions of the Waste Act were presented to the committee was in September 2009 as background information for the integrated waste
management planning process. According to the consultant employed to undertake the integrated waste management planning process the presentation “consisted of no more than 5 slides on the Waste Act, the entire presentation and subsequent discussion lasted no more than half an hour as it was intended as a report back and feedback session with councillors responsible for oversight of waste management services” An analysis of the minutes of three and half years of meetings of the Community Services Portfolio Committee confirms that no prior item dealt with the new waste management policy.
5.2.4 The MM Labour Sector
Representatives from both SAMWU and IMATU who are shop stewards representing workers employed in the WMU and the LSU indicate that no workshops or meetings have been organised by senior management of both units with labour representatives and general workers in order to inform them of the provisions of the new Waste Act and its implications for service delivery within the MM. Both shop stewards indicated to hearing about the Waste Act for the first time during a site visit organised by senior management of the WMU to a private recycler called Central Waste during the early part of 2009. According to one shop steward, “we were asked to accompany senior managers to a meeting with Central Waste, we were told they would be helping to pilot separate collection of paper, we were told it is important to do experiments with separate collection services because the new Waste Act
97 require municipalities to provide such a services, it was our first time to hear of a new waste law in South Africa”.
5.2.5 The Business Sector
The organised business sector represented by the Pietermaritzburg Chamber of Business (PCB) reported that they are not very familiar with the Waste Act given that there is a degree of apathy amongst their members on waste management issues. One of the representatives of the PCB indicated that “our members don’t lose sleep over waste issues”. The waste
management business sector primarily made up of waste management service providers and recyclers reported that they are very aware of the Waste Act and are involved in processes to develop their capacity to deliver the new services required by the Act.
5.2.6 The Regulating Authority Sector
Representatives from both the DWA and the DAEARD indicate that they are well informed of the Waste Act given that they were involved in developing the new policy direction and are currently involved in processes aimed at implementing the Act. Both representatives indicated that public awareness of the Waste Act was very low and needed to be addressed.
5.2.7 The Technical Expert Sector
Predictably all the individuals interviewed within this sector are very familiar with the Waste Act; most of them are involved on a daily basis with activities relating to implementation of the Act on behalf of government or private sector clients. The majority of technical experts raised concerns about the limited extent to which local government politicians and the general public were aware of changes made to South Africa‟s waste management policies by the Waste Act and the negative effects this would have on implementation. One of the technical experts raised the issue in the following manner, “the new Waste Act requires behavioural changes at an individual level in order for practices like recycling to be
sustainable, yet many of the people who need to change their behaviour have not been made aware of the effects of the Waste Act, waste is too low down on the priority list of government to expect for it to be addressed at a public level like the way smoking has been addressed over the past few years”
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