Happy Valley residents upset about medical waste

KNYSNA NEWS - Residents of Happy Valley in Concordia, Knysna, have been complaining about medical waste dumped in their informal settlement exposing children to diseases.

Resident Cynthia Mbatha said she noticed drips that had been dumped in the Honey Valley area two weeks ago.

"They are still there. There were children playing with them and I had to chase these children away because it is unsafe to play with medical waste as you don't know what it was used for," Mbatha said. "We have to stop children playing with them every time."

Another resident, Zuko Twani, confirmed that people are illegally dumping in their area. "Young and old people come here to look for food in the dumped refuse. There was an incident where I had to stop old people who took food that was dumped here. Now there are these drips which we don't know what they were used for," he said.

Twani said the municipality does not clean the area and refuse is piling up.

Department of Health spokesperson Nadia Ferreira said drips used in clinics form part of medical waste, which is stored in a designated area at their facilities and disposed of according to strict regulations. "Medical waste is collected via an external company on a weekly basis from Western Cape Government Health facilities and transported to approved sites for disposal," Ferreira said.

Medical waste dumped in Honey Valley in Concordia. Photo: Tembile Sgqolana

The councillor for the Concordia area, Thando Matika, posted pictures of illegal dumping sites on his Facebook page and expressed his frustration with people who are illegally dumping in the location.

Matika wrote: "Sometimes I really don't understand why our communities are illegally dumping while the municipality is trying its best to collect refuse every day. We must also assist as a community, cleaning our own communities."

Knysna-Plett Herald sent questions to the municipality on 5 August, following up with reminders on 13 August and again on Monday 17 August, which the municipality acknowledged and promised to respond to, but had not done so by the time of going to print.

Medical waste dumped in Happy Valley in Concordia. Photo: Tembile Sgqolana