GARDEN ROUTE NEWS - The Garden Route District Municipality (GRDM) is advertising for tenders for the provision of a loan for the development of the new regional landfill site.
Currently, the PetroSA facility is still being used for dumping of domestic waste from George, Knysna, Bitou and Mossel Bay, more than a decade after the company (in 2010) indicated that it could no longer accept waste because it had run out of space.
The GRDM will be financing the project single-handedly after Eden Waste Management and Interwaste in 2020 withdrew from a public private part-nership (PPP) agreement.
According to that agreement, approved in December 2019, the private partners would have executed the development and run the facility for a period of 10 years. Their withdrawal was due to the negative economic impact of Covid-19.
GRDM senior communications officer Marillia Veldkornet told George Herald that PetroSA has extended its latest deadline for accepting waste from December 2021 to the end of February 2023.
"The current project timeline indicates that construction will commence in January 2023 and an operational cell will be available by 30 June 2023.*
"Due to the limited time to establish the regional facility, it was decided to no longer pursue the PPP process but rather make use of loan funding to construct the facility and then to outsource the operations and maintenance to a credible service provider."
She said the total project site is designed to include three cells with a lifespan of approximately 60 years, based on the current waste disposal trends.
Cell 1 has an estimated lifespan of 20 to 22 years.
"Cell 2 and Cell 3 will only be constructed in the future, once Cell 1 has reached full capacity."
Tenders for loan, construction
The cut-off date for tenders for the provision of a loan is 21 June. Veldkornet said the amount of the loan will only be known once the construction tender has been awarded.
It is envisaged that the construction tender will be advertised on 24 July for a period of 30 days. Veldkornet said the construction tender can only be awarded once the loan tender has been finalised and the required loan funding obtained.
"The current project timeline indicates that the loan tender will be finalised by the end of October."
The new facility is located about 13km west of Mossel Bay on a property adjacent to PetroSA. It will have the capacity to accommodate approximately 8 500 tons of domestic waste monthly from the four current users, but is designed to also handle waste from the Hessequa and Oudtshoorn municipalities, should that become necessary.
Gwaiing landfill site decommissioning
According to the George Integrated Waste Management Plan 2020-2025, a waste infra-structure master plan will be implemented between now and 2041.
The master plan includes the closure and rehabilitation of the George (Gwaiing) and Uniondale landfill sites between 2024 and 2029 at a cost of R23m and R8,7m respectively.
The George Local Municipality Waste Minimisation Plan of 2021 states that the municipality must work towards increasing the diversion of waste from the Gwaiing landfill and the process of closing the site has to start by August 2022.
Upon inquiry, environmental services senior manager Sivuyile Mtila said decommissioning a landfill must start within five years of the date of closure. In terms of the 2019 waste licence for George, rehabilitation of the site must start on 10 November 2024.
"The municipality has already commenced the process of decommissioning the facility. Five boreholes were installed as stipulated in the decommission licence. A trial dynamic compaction project was also done to test the method to be used for the rehabilitation of the site."
Referring to progress made in the reduction of waste and treatment of organic waste as mentioned in the city's waste management plan, Mtila said all organic waste will be disposed at the George municipal compost facility which is being constructed.
"Domestic waste is disposed of at the PetroSA landfill site and builders' rubble is diverted to the compost facility project."
He encouraged the public to fully participate in the three-bag (blue, green and black) system introduced by the municipality to reduce waste dumped at the landfill.
Process leading up to new regional landfill
The GRDM has gone through a lengthy exercise in its endeavour to establish the new regional waste facility. The process started in 2007 and in February 2008, an environmental impact assessment was finalised.
Environmental Affairs and Development Planning (now the Department of Environment, Forestry and Fisheries) issued environmental authorisation in 2013.
In 2014 a Section 78 investigation in terms of the Local Government Municipal Systems Act was done and it was determined that an external mechanism or the use of an external service provider would be a more affordable option for the district municipality. A process to form a public private partnership (PPP) was started and the project was registered with national treasury as a PPP.
In November 2015, GRDM received a waste management licence from the department of environmental affairs.
In December 2019, Council approved a PPP agreement with Eden Waste Management to build and operate the facility over a period of 10 years.
A sod-turning event was held in February 2020, but a few months later the private partners withdrew due to financial constraints.
* GRDM has promised further information regarding the handling of waste from March to June 2023.
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