The City of Johannesburg (COJ) wants to add an additional R50 “recycling levy” on top of your monthly refuse removal bill if your residence is worth more than R350 000. 

The city’s waste management bylaws have made it mandatory for every household within the COJ to separate waste at their households and businesses. We believe this is an important development for a more sustainable future, however, people shouldn’t be charged and forced to do the work of separation themselves but rather be subsidised. 

Though recycling at source is a step in the right direction, charging residents instead of incentivising them is not. So we call on CoJ to scrap the levy and consider to reduce residents’ waste removal tariffs by R50 if they separate at source.

OUTA is also of the opinion that recyclers, who have been successfully processing recyclable waste for many years, should be consulted and permanent employment of these individuals should be considered in order to ensure that their best practice is implemented and their only source of income is not taken from them. Revenue generated by the recycling programme should aim at covering the cost of operations and subsidise participating residents by reducing their municipal tariffs.