Chamber of Mines to utilise F/town landfill
Chakalisa Dube | Thursday September 17, 2015 16:36
More than a year ago, the Chamber announced that it intended to build a plant for the disposal of chemicals used by its members, at its plot, which is also located in Dumela.
The BCM chief executive officer, Charles Siwawa says the plan to build the plant has been temporarily halted and in the interim, they would use the FCC landfill to dispose of chemicals for its members.
“We are in the process of signing a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the city council to use its landfill in the interim. The MoU draft is ready. I however, cannot be exact as to when we will sign the memorandum but it will be soon because talks have reached an advanced stage,” Siwawa said.
Siwawa said that the BCM took a decision to temporarily halt the construction of its own chemical disposing plant, because they realised that it is very complex to build.
“For now I cannot commit to a date we will start construction of our own plant, because it is a long process.”
Siwawa said that BCM has already done an inspection at the Council landfill and it is in a good state. He added that the BCM would fund its activities at the landfill as well as assist the FCC to maintain it.
“Even when we have built our own facility, we plan to continue assisting the FCC maintain its landfill as part of our corporate social responsibility initiative,” he said.
He said their members, who are mostly mines around the country, use a combined P5 million to dispose of their chemicals in South Africa.
Siwawa said the Chamber is yet to quantify the cost of disposing of chemicals at the city council landfill. He however, highlighted that a hypothetical analysis shows that it is cost effective to dispose of chemicals at the FCC landfill than in South Africa.
FCC spokesperson Joseph Wasubera confirmed ongoing talks between the city council and the organisation but could not go into details because there are yet to finalise the matter.