An audit by AfriForum showed that only 22% of the 127 landfill sites it surveyed complied with the minimum requirements.Only 28 out of 127 landfill sites that AfriForum surveyed in 2019 complied with the minimum requirements in terms of the law.
The survey was conducted by AfriForum in municipalities where it has branches, as part of its national project to measure the standard of landfill sites in South Africa. The National Environmental Management: Waste Act sets out a number of minimum requirements that a landfill site must satisfy. Jaco Grobbelaar, project co-ordinator for environmental affairs at AfriForum, said the low percentage of landfill sites complying with requirements could be attributed to problems experienced by municipalities. This could in turn lead to poor and illegal management of the sites.