Local Government, Environmental Affairs and Development Planning

The Department has facilitated the licensing of unlicensed waste disposal facilities since 2010, resulting in all facilities having valid licenses at the completion of the project. The validity of licenses is not eternal and do expire after 10 years. The Department has reminded municipalities of the expiry of the licences, where some municipalities have responded with substantial reasons to extend the validity of their licences and others did not take heed to the call. It must be noted that the period of lapsing of licenses coincided with the COVID-19 pandemic, where the focus was primarily on human survival, resulting in municipalities and many other entities channelling resources to health and wellbeing and less to operations.

The Department updated its Municipal Waste Infrastructure study of 2016 during 2024/25, which assessed the risks through identifying the waste infrastructure and cost required for environmental compliance (that includes compliance to existing Waste Management Licences), law reforms since the study was last undertaken, effective service delivery and safe disposal of waste. The study revealed, that to achieve the above-mentioned outcomes, a cost of approximately R3 109 706 312 will be needed. Most municipalities do not have the budget to implement what is required, and for this reason the Department is assessing the process to access the Budget Facility for Infrastructure (BFI) funding from National Treasury to address the backlog.

Of the 16 facilities whose licenses have lapsed, 9 are from Matzikama and Cederberg Municipality, and most of these facilities had a low compliance score in terms of waste disposal license conditions. It is for this reason that the Department supported the establishment of the West Coast Regional Landfill facility, so that these facilities could be closed and waste disposed at a compliant facility where resources could be consolidated to meet the current legal compliance standards. This would then address environmental compliance, safe disposal of waste and improved service delivery. Not all infrastructure is in place (particularly at Cederberg Municipality) to facilitate the transport of waste to the Regional Facility, and financial constraints of municipalities must also be considered.

The impact of unlicensed closed facilities is that it is for waste disposal facilities that have not been operating for years. The licences have lapsed due to the Licence Holders not commencing within the period stipulated for final capping and closure.  It therefore does not affect the immediate service delivery in terms of safe disposal of waste but may have some impact due to the huge costs of decommissioning these waste disposal facilities, which the municipalities cannot afford. There are now additional costs of having these licenses re-instated as the licensing application process needs to start all over again.