INDUSTRY JOURNAL Vol . 8
dysfunctional municipalities . There is a high correlation between municipal distress and wastewater treatment , to the point where we can safely say that as a rule of thumb , an indicator of municipal health is the quality of its wastewater treatment . No distressed municipalities have functional wastewater treatment plants , and many functional municipalities still have distressed wastewater treatment plants .
To understand what this means , we need to think of a river as a linear system that accumulates waste along its length . Given our unique geography , most of our population lives in the hinterland of the country , mostly on a high plateau consisting of grassland .
This population dispersal pattern is an artefact of history , mostly driven by mining on the Highveld and in the Free State Goldfields . This means that large cities have grown close to the points of origin of all our major rivers . The Witwatersrand , along which the greatest population density exists , is a massive urban conurbation ranging from Randfontein on the West Rand to Secunda on the East Rand . These are mining areas where huge mountains of waste have been disposed of , all of which leach toxic metals into the very headwaters of our big rivers – the Limpopo and Orange .
All rivers are consequently contaminated at the source , typically by mining waste , which includes uranium , arsenic , cadmium and other metals . However , those same rivers are the source of drinking water for the entire population , while at the same time becoming the receiving bodies for wastewater discharged from sewage works . Hardly a news cycle goes by in which we don ’ t hear of raw sewage flowing into the nearest river . I am on record as saying that our sewage crisis is probably the root of an inevitable health catastrophe , because it ’ s common knowledge that waste carries with it a range of substances that are harmful to humans .
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