Questions have been raised about health regulations at the municipal landfill and dump site in Grahamstown’s industrial area after Grahamstown citizen Toni Olivier recorded video footage of people dumping bones at the site.
Questions have been raised about health regulations at the municipal landfill and dump site in Grahamstown’s industrial area after Grahamstown citizen Toni Olivier recorded video footage of people dumping bones at the site.
The video clearly shows a pile of meaty bones lying in a pile to which people were adding more bones off the back of a bakkie. Voices can also clearly be heard in the background saying "Madam, we are going to have the meat for supper." These were the voices of people who regularly scour the dumpsite for anything edible. "I don’t think it is healthy that these bones are left like that and people are eating them. It is not right," Olivier said.
Thandy Matebese, the Makana municipal spokesperson said, "Meat, bones and carcasses can be dumped in that dump site but an arrangement has to be made with the municipality as they need to be buried and disposed of properly."
Upon investigation it was established that the bones were ostrich bones so Grocott’s Mail contacted Grahamstown Ostrich Abbatoir (GOA) to find out whether the bones could be traced to the abbatoir. Gerrie Botha, the manager of the abbatoir said they do not dump their any animal waste products at the dumpsite as they have "contracted the municipality to collect and dump it for us," he said.
On the video the registration number of the bakkie is visible. A phonecall by Grocott’s Mail to the police revealed that the bakkie is owned by Phillippe GOP Marketing Company. On behalf of the company, Norman Bester declared that "we do not dump carcasses ourselves but give them to Impec and they process everything for us."
Integrated meat processers of the Eastern Cape (Impec) buys live ostriches, slaughters them at the GOA and debones the carcasses for processing and packaging for export market. When asked why their bakkie was seen offloading bones at the municipal dumpsite Bester said that must have been people from Impec as they hire out their vehicles to the company.
Impec manager, Werner Raubenheimer said, "We don’t dump carcasses but long bones as they cannot be processed any further." He said they bag the bones and transport them to the dump site and that the municipality is meant to dig a hole so that the bones can be buried.
Raubenheimer said they are responsible for packing the bones in the hole, but the municipality is then responsible for covering the bones with lime chloride -rendering it unsuitable for human consumption and speeding up the decomposition process- as well as for burying it. If they need to dump bones and they find that no hole has been made for them at the site," he said.
We pack them nicely, maybe behind the bushes so that people cannot get hold of them." When asked about how, as is revealed in the video, Impec has been packing the bags out in the open he said, "I don’t always go there personally but sometimes send my guys to dump the stuff for me, it must be them who left it like that."
However, Raubenheimer suggested that the dumpsite "should be fenced off", but that it wasn’t up to him to effect that. He added that at the moment they do not have a dedicated area to dump waste bones and that maybe "things would be better" if they had.
When made aware of the fact that people are eating off these bones and the fact that it might not be safe for human consumption, he said, "We produce high quality products and we throw the bones away not because they aren’t safe for human consumption but because they are not economically viable. A person who eats those bones would not get sick."
Makana Environmental Health and Cleansing assistant director Johann Esterhuizen could not be reached for comment as they had closed office early on Friday.
