Rural solid waste in the Western Cape

Solid waste as a management problem is mostly perceived to be an urban problem. This can be attributed to the concentration of industrial and human waste producers there, as well as to the fact that urban waste is managed. Rural waste is more often than not ignored, or at best is shoddily managed. The Western Cape offers a special challenge, with its aesthetically and agriculturally highly sensitive and valuable landscape accommodating a large rural population at fairly high density. In the virtual absence of public waste removal services, private waste management practice is bound to be marginal and to produce environmental and especially water pollution impacts. Questionnaire and field surveys of 350 land owners were therefore conducted to establish the extent of rural waste generation and to devise a management strategy for a study area covering the Stellenbosch district on the outskirts of Cape Town. The project is reported in full by Steyl (1996).