A television set is the latest unlikely subject to come out of the sewers in Cape Town.
The shocking find comes just days after a whole mattress was fished out of a 900-millimetre sewer pipeline in Lavender Hill.
A video shared on social media shows City of Cape Town workers removing the vrot mattress from the drain along with other garbage.
Mayco member for Water and Sanitation, Zahid Badroodien, said car tyres, teaspoons and forks, and even a TV and car parts, were some of the snaakse dinge removed by the City’s Water and Sanitation Directorate.
He added that over the past financial year (July 2022 to June 2023), the City has spent as much as R417 million to help reduce and tackle blockages in the sewer system.
This includes both proactive measures, such as the City’s Winter Preparedness Programme to jet-clean the sewer pipelines, and reactive cleaning costs, to clear sewer blockages as a result of illegal dumping and misuse of the sewer system.
Recently, a bucket-load of spoons and forks were removed from a sewer in Mfuleni.
On Wednesday, June 21, a mattress was pulled out of the sewer in Lavender Hill using specialised cleaning equipment in a four-hour-long operation.
Badroodien wysed that illegal dumping causes endless problems for everyone.
“The City’s Water and Sanitation teams clear and clean over 300 sewer blockages and overflows a day as a result of this problem,” he said.
“About 85% of these cases are the result of the misuse of the sewer system where items such as rags, feminine hygiene products, builders’ rubble, litter, fats and oils, and most recently, a mattress and cutlery, are illegally dumped into manholes or enter the system via sinks or by being flushed down toilets.
“The City has even removed a TV and car parts from our sewer lines. These waste items should not be in the sewer network, so when they are, they cause sewers to overflow into our streets.”
This in turn damages the infrastructure related to the conveyance and treatment of sewage across the city such as pump stations which are very costly to repair, Badroodien added.
“We also appeal to residents and community leaders and community leaders to use the available resources on the City’s website to join in efforts to raise awareness about this issue and what all of us can do to prevent sewer blockages.”
Mense are urged to use the City’s many drop-off facilities to get rid of any solid waste.
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