The drive to keep Cape Town clean will be boosted by the R1 million in prize money the City
took home for being judged the cleanest metro in a competition run by the Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism.

The award was announced by the department’s deputy minister, Rejoice Mabudafhasi, at a ceremony held as part of a national waste management conference that took place at the Emperor’s Palace in Gauteng in March 2007. The City of Cape Town walked off with the "Cleanest
Town” award for 2006/2007 – coming in ahead of the Nelson Mandela Metro,  Johannesburg
and Ethekwini. The “Cleanest Town” honour went to the Swartland Local Municipality.

The competition, which was launched in 2001, aims to promote responsible waste-management practices at a local level and awards points for visual cleanliness, levels and access to services, and progress toward the eradication of the bucket system. This is the second time Cape Town
has won this bi-annual award, the first being in 2002. In 2004, the city was the second runner-up. The prize money is to be used in development programmes and projects to sustain cleanliness in communities.

Rustim Keraan, the City’s Director of Solid Waste Management, says winning the competition was a great honour for Cape Town. “We are grateful to be recognised in this way. It is a huge accomplishment and the result of massive effort put in by Solid Waste Management and Water Services to maintain existing high levels of service,” he says. Keraan says that Cape Town, along with every other city in South Africa, urgently needs legislation to enhance and govern 'extended producer responsibility.' “Our primary aim is waste minimisation – where manufacturers like bottle suppliers and publishing companies take their waste back into their supply systems and recycle it. There is no legislation obliging them to do so at present,” Keraan says.

The adjudication team in the competition performed a comprehensive physical assessment of local living conditions, after which a score was awarded in various categories. These included general area cleanliness, availability and quality of public open spaces, graveyards, sports and sanitation facilities. Emphasis was placed on assessing the eradication of the bucket system. These factors carried a 60% weighting in the score; the other 40% was made up of an assessment of the utilisation of budgets and the availability and execution of strategies and plans.

Keraan says the people of Cape Town should realise that the accolade recognises their contributions too. “Without them, this award would not have been possible. But what we want to say is that if more people did the same, we would have an even cleaner city.”