Starting in our streets and open spaces, litter begins a long, destructive journey to street drains and underground pipes, canals and rivers, and vleis and oceans. Here it slowly releases substances that may be harmful to living creatures, chokes plants and animals, entangles birds and seals, and causes flooding due to blockages of our storm water system. Beaches and rivers are littered, fun and recreation are spoiled and tourism is devalued. Together with all Cape Town residents and visitors, the City’s Solid Waste Management Department is responsible for ensuring general cleanliness in streets and public spaces within its jurisdiction. Solid Waste Management strives to provide sustainable cleaning services or community-based contracts that are equitable and affordable to the city’s residents. Through community involvement and empowerment, community partnerships are formed with service providers to ensure that cleaning and cleansing services maintain the minimum cleanliness standards.

• Litter bins
• Litter
• Street cleaning
• River and canal banks
• Beaches
• Illegal dumping
• Animal carcasses
• Informal settlements
  
  

Litter bins A new litter bin design is being implemented and bins will be placed in areas such as business areas, transport interchanges and places of high pedestrian traffic where the servicing of these bins is sustainable.

Litter Picking up of litter is carried out with other scheduled cleaning programmes such as street cleaning. Where there are no scheduled or mechanical cleaning programmes in place, the Solid Waste Management districts are responsible for ad-hoc (or on an as-needs basis) manual litter picking programmes.

Street cleaning

The cleaning of streets occurs in predefined areas according to different categories and street cleaning programmes. The methodology of street cleaning happens from one property boundary to the opposite property boundary, and consists of litter picking and cleaning of the sidewalks and street (excluding private property and national parks).

There are different types of street cleaning. In conjunction with labour, mechanical sweepers and water tankers are used where appropriate to sweep or clean the streets.

Street cleaning programmes on specific roads (such as scenic routes) are scheduled at appropriate intervals throughout the City. About 145 suburbs are classified as“sand-prone” and these fall under the Sandy Area Programmes. This programme is scheduled in formal residential suburbs where the road verges are un-stabilised. Where possible, these programmes will be assigned to community-based contracts with assistance from the Specialised Equipment Unit (SEU).

An Autumn Programme takes place in suburbs with stabilised verges where trees are very dense (also known as the “leafy suburbs”). These areas are cleaned using manual labour with the assistance of a mechanical sweeper. Non-leafy, stabilised verge suburbs are only swept on an ad-hoc basis. Industrial areas are swept manually as the budget allows. In future this service will be outsourced to community-based contracts.

Water tanker services are used to assist street cleaning in areas where human activity necessitates disinfecting or hosing down with water. The cleaning of major roads, such as the express- and freeways (where not classified as Provincial Roads), are outsourced and occur during the night, when traffic volumes are low. Main arterials and scenic routes are cleaned by the SEU on a monthly basis, with a top-up service during the festive season in scenic areas.

River and canal banks
The Area Cleaning Branch is responsible for picking up litter on river and canal banks. The rivers themselves are cleaned by the Stormwater Department.

Beaches
Clean beaches help protect the health of people and the environment and promote tourism. This service is undertaken in accordance with Western Cape Integrated Coastal Management Bill and related City policies and plans, such as the Coastal Zone Management Plans.

Three hundred kilometres of beaches are cleaned throughout the city. Mechanical deep sand cleaning takes place on popular tourist beaches, as well as picking up of litter, kelp and shells.

Other beaches are only cleaned of litter. Incidental pollution resulting from emergencies, such as oil spills at sea, whale carcasses and dead seals, is cleaned by Solid Waste in collaboration with other responsible agencies. This particular service often requires specialised equipment and services.

Illegal dumping
Illegal dumping is one of the City’s biggest problems and costs hundreds of millions of rands a year to clean up. Although the City tries to prevent illegal dumping by providing facilities around the city for the diversion of waste (such as garden waste, recyclables, residential waste and builders' rubble), the dumping of waste on public or private properties still occurs.

Illegal dumping is a punishable offence in terms of the by-laws that are implemented for this purpose. A dedicated Solid Waste By-law Enforcement team is currently being established to ensure that the by-law is strictly enforced throughout the city.

Offenders must take note that action will be taken against them if the by-law is not adhered to. To report illegal dumping, please phone the call centre or to obtain help/guidance in by-law enforcement relating to illegal dumping, please contact the Metro Police. Small ad-hoc dumping is cleared by district staff. Signage indicating 'no dumping' is erected where possible and necessary.

• Illegal dumping flyer 1
• Illegal dumping flyer 2

Animal carcasses
The service for the removal of animal carcasses is outsourced to external companies via the City’s procurement tender process. The contract only includes the removal of carcasses on public land and roads (an average of 1 700 per month), and not as a service to private people and veterinarians.

The service is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. To report an incident, telephone the call centre. As part of beach cleaning, an in-house service ensures removal of seal and whale carcasses in collaboration with other responsible agencies and often requires the services of the SEU.

During the festive season, up to 1 000 seal carcasses per day can be removed. In 2006/07, six whale carcasses were removed from the city’s beaches.

Informal settlements
The cleaning and collection of domestic refuse in informal settlements is done through community- based contracts. Three-year contracts are awarded to a legitimate main contractor through the procurement tender process.

The main contractor appoints a local labourer for ± 400 dwellings. For every six labourers, one supervisor is appointed. The local labourers are changed annually to give employment opportunities to more residents in the community. Each dwelling is provided with sufficient black bags. Full bags are collected on a weekly door-to-door basis and are taken to a container at a centralised collection point whereafter waste is transported to a landfill site for disposal.

Labourers are also responsible for street sweeping, litter picking and illegal dumping removal within and up to a 100 m around their assigned area of responsibility. To ensure that the required cleaning and collections services are efficient, the areas are measured and judged according to predetermined standards of cleanliness.

If an area does not comply with the minimum standards of cleanliness, penalties are payable for non-achievement. For any area cleaning services, please contact the corporate call centre.

For cleaning of the following, please contact the corporate call centre and you will be directed to the responsible department:

• Stormwater catch pits and gulleys – Roads & Stormwater
• Rivers and canals – Roads & Stormwater
• Public ablution facilities – Amenities
• Sport stadiums – Sport, Recreation and Amenities
• Cemeteries – City Parks
• Council housing flats and complexes – Integrated Human Settlements
• Graffiti – Amenities
• Railway property, including tracks – TRANSNET/SPOORNET
• National Parks – South African National Parks