An assessment of solid waste collection model for Mogale City Local Municipality, West of Johannesburg, South Africa

The solid waste collection in all municipalities requires proper infrastructure and upgrading of all waste management activities. Increasingly expensive of waste collections services is associated with lack of planning by individual municipalities. While this is a fact, municipalities often find themselves in poor financial status due to mismanagement of municipal finances, and this affect waste collection services negatively where in some municipalities the services are poor and in others non-existent. At this juncture, the municipalities that are affected normally decide on another approach of providing waste collection services amongst which are the development of a new waste collection model. In line with this, some municipalities experience major shortcomings with the current models that are in place in their own area. The aim of study was to assess the waste collection models that are used in Mogale City Local Municipality. To achieve this aim, objectives were to assess the waste collection services, to review the implementation of waste collection systems and to recommend a new waste collection model for Mogale City Local Municipality. This study was conducted in Mogale City, West Rand District of Gauteng, South Africa. The total population was thirty-nine (n=39) municipal wards from which a sample size of 22 wards was drawn. Respondents were categorized into three groups of wards councillors (n=22), managers of residential complexes and shopping centres (n=51) and municipal solid waste officers (n=13). Selection of respondents was done randomly. Data were collected quantitatively and interpreted qualitatively. Data analysis of themes identified from the study categories was done separately by using SPSS version 25.0 with the assistance of STATKON (Division for data analysis within the University of Johannesburg). Findings of the study revealed that waste collection services were inconsistent owing to insufficient budget to cover waste collection services and the red tape on procurement processes. The outcomes of this study may help the Mogale City Local municipality to develop a solid waste collection model in their jurisdiction and, the development of such model may be seen used in other municipalities in Gauteng province that are experiencing the problem of solid waste collection backlogs. Findings will also be shared with the global researchers through publications and presentations in conferences. This study recommends that communities in Mogale City should all pay for waste collection services, the bureaucrats and waste management officials within the Mogale City Local municipality should budget together to prevent backlogs of solid waste collection in the study area.