Living in the shadows of dirt

MASERU – IT is the waft of stench that overpowers you as you approach the infamous dumpsite in Ha-Tšosane, some 10km outside central Maseru.

It is here that the Maseru City Council (MCC) has been dumping rubbish collected from all corners of the city, much to the exasperation of residents of Ha-Tšosane.

The practice has been going on for years, with no solution in sight.

Setene Malope, who has lived in Ha-Tšosane since 1980, says every time there is wind “we have to pick up rubbish blown away from the dumpsite in our yards”.

“We pay rubbish collection rates so that the MCC keeps on dumping rubbish in our backyard again, so that we pay again for collecting it. The cycle goes on and on,” Malope says.

The solution, Malope says, lies in bringing back a contractor whose contract was terminated a few years ago.

He says that contractor, Motse Mia, “took care of the dumpsite and we trusted him. He understood us as the community”.

Malope says before Motse Mia was contracted “there used to be dead bodies dumped there as well as dead infants but Motse Mia put an end to that and we were able to find peace”.

“Ever since Motse Mia left, there is no control here, dead infants are dumped in here again and the smell in the evening is unbearable,” he says.

The dumpsite is situated within the catchment area of the Maqalika reservoir.

Water, particularly storm water runoff during the rainy season, flows freely into the dam.

The MCC’s plans to relocate the landfill from Ha-Tšosane to Tšoeneng in Rothe have failed several times since 2001.

Since 2006 every budget speech in parliament has promised to fund the closure of the landfill but there has been no action this far.

The new government led by Prime Minister Sam Matekane appears keenly aware of the Ha-Tšosane people’s grievances.

Last week, it dispatched Limpho Tau, who is a Minister in the Prime Minister’s Office to speak to the villagers.

Tau had good promises for the people. He says the government has set aside M3 million to produce gas from the dumpsite and neutralise the stench for good.

“Experts came to my office saying they would recycle, use waste to make gas,” Tau says.

Landfill gas (LFG) is a natural byproduct of the decomposition of organic material in landfills.

LFG is composed of roughly 50 percent methane (the primary component of natural gas), 50 percent carbon dioxide (CO2) and a small amount of non-methane organic compounds.

Methane is a potent greenhouse gas at least 28 times more effective than CO2 at trapping heat in the atmosphere over a 100-year period according to the latest Intergovernmental Panel on

Climate Change (IPCC) assessment report.

Tau says there was a time when the dumpsite area was manageable and the smell “was acceptable”. Not anymore, he says.

“The Ha-Tšosane dumpsite make one’s heart sore while looking at it and that should come to an end,” he says.

He says the experts should try to kill the bad stench from the dumpsite.

“There should be control at the dumpsite so that people will know who dumps trash there to avoid the issue of people dumping and burying their dead animals there,” he says.

“They should know who brings the waste.”

“I have not made a formal speech about this but soon I will speak on national television on how I will contribute in this project.”

He apologised on behalf of the past government over its failures to fix the dumpsite issue.

“Leadership is an ongoing process from one Mosotho to another and leadership belongs to King Letsie III,” he says.

One of the residents, Tšasanyane, says the villagers need to be medically checked because they are sick with different diseases.

“Even though the waste is going to be solved, I request that the villagers be checked,” she says.

The Principal Secretary for the Ministry of Local Government, Pokello Mahlomola, assured the villagers that the government will keep its word on the dumpsite.

“The government is worried about this and we promise that by the end of the year we will come again to give a report of how far we would have worked on this issue,” Mahlomola says.

Another resident, Tšitso, says at least four children have died at the site after consuming contaminated food.

Tšitso says the children would go to the site scavenging for toys but would pick up contaminated food which led to their deaths.

“How soon will the government start the project?” was all that Tšitso wanted to know.

Despite the powerful stench, villagers continue to scavenge at the dumpsite, sorting garbage for sale at recycling companies in Maseru.

It’s a dirty, humiliating and dangerous job which they do without any protective clothing.

“Most of the workers in that landfill are not even people from Ha-Tšosane. They come from Thaba-Tseka and other rural districts. They are promised jobs but they end up here,” says Maliba, a resident whose house is close to the landfill.

Even residents living in the capital city some 10km away from the landfill are far from being safe according to experts.

The government’s promise to intervene comes three months after the Tšosane community filed an application in the High Court seeking compensation for their exposure to health hazards brought by the dumpsite.

They also asked the court to order the government to remove the dumpsite as a matter of urgency.

The MCC had earlier threatened to remove them from the area saying they allocated themselves sites adjacent to the dumpsite.

The village headman, Chief Michael Ramosalla, refuted the charge. He told thepost in an earlier interview that the quarry was first situated some 5km away along the Main North One Road before much of Maseru was populated.

Chief Ramosalla says when the quarry was relocated to where it is now located “there were already people living here”.

“So it’s obvious that the quarry came to the people, people didn’t go to the quarry,” Chief Ramosalla says.

“That’s why I’m saying I don’t support the issue of moving people from where they have been living because the quarry came to the village,” he says.

He says even when the quarry was turned into a dumpsite, the villagers were told that it was a temporary arrangement and they never expected that it would take this long.

The dumpsite was established in 1983, decades after the first group of people moved into the area.

The MCC was only established in 1989, finding people already with legal documents giving them rights to their land.

“The quarry is meant to be the soil that will be used for something but all the trash of Maseru is dumped here. The village has always existed,” Chief Ramosalla insists.

Many residents say they will refuse to move, come what may.

In an earlier interview, the spokesperson for the MCC, ’Makatleho Mosala, said plans were still afoot to relocate the landfill although she didn’t say when and how much that would cost.

She hinted that it could be a long wait for the desperate residents as the municipality did not have money to build a solid waste management plant as well as buy consumables needed to make the new site suitable for waste.

Alice Samuel