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“The rich will always be able to dispose of their waste”: a view from the frontlines of municipal failure in Makhanda, South Africa
A significant proportion of South African municipalities, who hold the mandate for providing solid waste management (SWM) services for millions of South Africans, appear to be on the brink of collapse. On the frontlines of municipal failure, the city of Makhanda, following two decades of poor govern...
Autores principales: | , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Springer Netherlands
2023
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10169190/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37363000 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10668-023-03363-1 |
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author | Kalina, Marc Makwetu, Ncebakazi Tilley, Elizabeth |
author_facet | Kalina, Marc Makwetu, Ncebakazi Tilley, Elizabeth |
author_sort | Kalina, Marc |
collection | PubMed |
description | A significant proportion of South African municipalities, who hold the mandate for providing solid waste management (SWM) services for millions of South Africans, appear to be on the brink of collapse. On the frontlines of municipal failure, the city of Makhanda, following two decades of poor governance and mismanagement, has found itself unable to fulfil its mandate, with the state retreating on SWM service provision, and disruptions to waste management services becoming a daily reality. Drawing on embedded, qualitative fieldwork, this article examines how differently placed residents have experienced disruptions to SWM services. This work explores how residents of Makhanda’s two halves: the affluent and predominantly white neighbourhoods in the west, and the poor, non-white townships in the east, have (or have not) adapted to manage and dispose of their own waste during periods of disruption. Findings suggest that disruptions to waste management service provision have been broadly experienced by residents. However, the consequences of interruptions to municipal collection have not been evenly borne, as more resourced, western residents have been more successful at managing their own waste disposal, while the residents of Makhanda’s townships are less capable of coping, with affected communities coming to resemble a dumping ground, and residents having to adopt unsafe or environmentally harmful disposal practices. These findings are important because they shed light on the challenges of creating cleaner, more equal communities without healthy municipal participation in waste management services, while raising important considerations for a South Africa facing the possibility of widespread municipal collapse. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-10169190 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2023 |
publisher | Springer Netherlands |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-101691902023-05-11 “The rich will always be able to dispose of their waste”: a view from the frontlines of municipal failure in Makhanda, South Africa Kalina, Marc Makwetu, Ncebakazi Tilley, Elizabeth Environ Dev Sustain Article A significant proportion of South African municipalities, who hold the mandate for providing solid waste management (SWM) services for millions of South Africans, appear to be on the brink of collapse. On the frontlines of municipal failure, the city of Makhanda, following two decades of poor governance and mismanagement, has found itself unable to fulfil its mandate, with the state retreating on SWM service provision, and disruptions to waste management services becoming a daily reality. Drawing on embedded, qualitative fieldwork, this article examines how differently placed residents have experienced disruptions to SWM services. This work explores how residents of Makhanda’s two halves: the affluent and predominantly white neighbourhoods in the west, and the poor, non-white townships in the east, have (or have not) adapted to manage and dispose of their own waste during periods of disruption. Findings suggest that disruptions to waste management service provision have been broadly experienced by residents. However, the consequences of interruptions to municipal collection have not been evenly borne, as more resourced, western residents have been more successful at managing their own waste disposal, while the residents of Makhanda’s townships are less capable of coping, with affected communities coming to resemble a dumping ground, and residents having to adopt unsafe or environmentally harmful disposal practices. These findings are important because they shed light on the challenges of creating cleaner, more equal communities without healthy municipal participation in waste management services, while raising important considerations for a South Africa facing the possibility of widespread municipal collapse. Springer Netherlands 2023-05-09 /pmc/articles/PMC10169190/ /pubmed/37363000 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10668-023-03363-1 Text en © The Author(s) 2023 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) . |
spellingShingle | Article Kalina, Marc Makwetu, Ncebakazi Tilley, Elizabeth “The rich will always be able to dispose of their waste”: a view from the frontlines of municipal failure in Makhanda, South Africa |
title | “The rich will always be able to dispose of their waste”: a view from the frontlines of municipal failure in Makhanda, South Africa |
title_full | “The rich will always be able to dispose of their waste”: a view from the frontlines of municipal failure in Makhanda, South Africa |
title_fullStr | “The rich will always be able to dispose of their waste”: a view from the frontlines of municipal failure in Makhanda, South Africa |
title_full_unstemmed | “The rich will always be able to dispose of their waste”: a view from the frontlines of municipal failure in Makhanda, South Africa |
title_short | “The rich will always be able to dispose of their waste”: a view from the frontlines of municipal failure in Makhanda, South Africa |
title_sort | “the rich will always be able to dispose of their waste”: a view from the frontlines of municipal failure in makhanda, south africa |
topic | Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10169190/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37363000 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10668-023-03363-1 |
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