By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
The City of Johannesburg has proposed the ‘recycling levy’ as part of its 2021/2022 tariff changes from July which you can have a look at here.
This proposal is part of its tariffs tabled in council in late March, with public comments closing on Saturday.
The “mandatory” programme is already in place as a trial in many of the northern suburbs and requires households to separate waste into two bags – a normal black bag and a separate clear bag (provided by the city) for recyclable items that is not placed in the Pikitup bin. These are collected separately by two separate fleets of vehicles.
The draft tariffs propose that “affluent households at various suburbs excluding those located in areas classified as township and informal settlements will be charged additional levy at an amount of R50 per month for all properties with a market value above R350 000”.
This additional levy means that the proposed 4.3% increase in refuse removal charges from July will, in practice, be significantly higher. On a R1 million house, owners will now pay R295 in total (with the new levy and proposed increase) meaning an effective 26% increase in refuse removal charges.
At the high end (properties with a value of over R5 million), the effective increase will be 18% (from R368 to a total of R433). Some have described the new levy as a “stealth tax”.
The fundamental problem with this plan is that it attempts to address an issue that the market has already solved.
The (likely) tens of thousands of informal waste pickers who weave along the city streets with their trolleys each morning ensure that all recyclable items of value are removed from those clear bags.
One estimate says that waste pickers collect as much as 80% of “post-consumer packaging and paper material”, putting our recycling rate on par with some countries in Western Europe.
What remains, then, are items that are difficult, uneconomical, or impossible to recycle (assuming that households correctly sort material is quite a stretch).
The city is spending a small fortune on contracted service providers who drive special trucks around suburbs to collect noticeably empty bags. From July, the R50 a month levy will fund the initiative.
Meanwhile Civil society group Outa has written a formal objection to the City of Johannesburg’s proposal to include an additional monthly electricity charge.
The proposal is included in the city’s draft budget for 2021/22, and will see a fixed monthly service charge of R230 added to domestic prepaid bills. R460 will be added to the prepaid bills of businesses.
Outa said that the proposed costs are unreasonable, particularly as prepaid electricity is usually used by lower-income households and SMMEs. It added that the economic situation facing residents is extremely difficult, particularly after the pandemic lockdowns.