ELECTIONS 2026 | Waste fires continue despite R150-million Kya Sands rehabilitation project

Health-e News Waste fires continue despite R150-million Kya Sands rehabilitation project A year after the City of Johannesburg announced a R150-million project to rehabilitate the decommissioned Kya Sands landfill, residents living nearby say recurring waste fires and smoke from illegal dumping continue to affect their daily lives, with some reporting breathing problems.

The Kya Sands landfill site, decommissioned more than 15 years ago after reaching capacity, borders a densely populated informal settlement, several middle class residential suburbs and an industrial manufacturing hub.

The City previously estimated that deteriorating air quality associated with the fires was affecting about 80,000 residents in and around Fourways, Cedar Lakes and Bloubosrand.

Smoke affecting residents “I cough every single day.

It recently woke me up at 3 o’clock in the morning, because I couldn’t breathe, and I started coughing immediately,” says 60-year-old Deborah Ball, who moved into an estate in Craigavon in August last year.

She said she did not have asthma before moving to the area but developed bronchial problems during winter.

When the burning becomes intense, she said she immediately notices a difference in her breathing.

Ball says the smoke sometimes has an acrid smell, which she believes comes from materials such as tyres, rubber or chemicals being burned.

“It’s really bad, like a horrible toxic smell that you can’t breathe.” ” I’ve had to start using an inhaler pump, because my chest closes now.” Illegal dumping continues Ward 98 councillor Davon Steenkamp says a boundary wall is being built as part of the City’s R150-million rehabilitation project, but trucks are still dumping waste on nearby private properties, where he says it is set alight to make space for the next load.

“There have been a lot of residents complaining about respiratory problems.

Even myself, when I drive through there or go into that area, it affects my sinuses, so I know very well what some of the repercussions are.” “It is also very sad for the people living in the informal settlements nearby because, unlike the people in the surrounding areas outside the settlement, they cannot afford to get air purifiers.

They constantly have to close their doors, and it is also difficult for the children who are living there,” said Steenkamp.

“The informal settlement residents cannot really do anything about this.