23/09/2021
Yes that is faeces running down the street. This inhumane, degrading and unsanitary state of affair forces the 20’000 community member of Imizamo Yethu informal settlement to pick their way through raw sewage on their commute. This sewage goes on to pollute waterways and beaches, creating additional health hazard for human and wildlife. In this case ocean conservation really does start ashore.
This is a complex issue, on a local level the Democratic Alliance, the political party that runs the province, has failed to deliver on their manifesto promise of providing affordable housing. Instead City land has consistently been permitted for luxury developments rather than low cost housing necessitating the continued used of overcrowded and unsafe informal settlements. This keeps intact the spatial apartheid, where geographical land settlement amongst the various races of the Western Province has barely changed since 1995. This needs to end by ensuring permitting conditions for any new development require a substantial low cost housing allotment.
The second issue is how we dispose of waste, a system that has barely changed since design some 150 years ago. In times of increasing urban population densities, water shortages, degrading infrastructure this is completely unsustainable. Flushing away 75l of clean drinking water per person per days places an untenable load on our water and sanitation infrastructure.
Through-out the rest of the year Soapbox Republic will continue to collaborate with Sanitation Ambassadors and Scandinavian Water Saving Products to investigate the solutions for this problem, not only for the poorest in our society, but across the board. If you have seen the first short piece about the pilot scheme in Coffee Bay follow the link.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_bbDrHwqJQ
