On Friday 28 June 2013, Deputy Minister of Water and Environmental Affairs, Rejoice Mabudafhasi, announced the winners of the Greenest Municipalities Competition during an award ceremony held in Marianhill Landfill Site, Durban.
The Greenest Municipality Competition (GMC) started its life as the Cleanest Town Competition (CTC) with a primary focus in implementing the National Waste Management Strategy. The Cleanest Town Competition’s pillars were the principles of reducing, recycling and reusing waste materials. Although these principles are still relevant, other elements related to sustainable development and various greening interventions have been added. The GMC focuses also on effort to get our municipalities to be central to the green economy. “Our Green Economy Plan, emphasizes the implementation of measures to strengthen and expand our economic growth through recycling and enterprise development so that we can generate and sustain jobs as well as formalize existing jobs in the waste area as part of the economy,” said Mabudafhasi. She further said “the Department of Environmental Affairs has conducted numerous studies that have clearly illustrated the capacity constraints that are experienced by Municipalities, in delivering waste services in Landfill operations, Waste collection planning and administration and refuse collection. We have a plan to bridge the capacity gap by involving community members, as partners and ambassadors, in the process of solving the environmental challenges in general and waste challenges in particular”.“The low levels of capacity in municipalities present an excellent opportunity for creation of jobs, on the job training, continuous up-skilling as well as enterprise development for the youth. An estimated 3 577 jobs will be created by placing young people in Municipalities, where they will work as: Landfill Site Assistants; Waste Collection Administrators; and Environmental Awareness Educators” said Mabudafhasi.
The Department awards prizes according to two categories namely; the Metropolitan Municipality and Local Municipality which are awarded first, second and third prizes. The prize money has to be utilised for projects that promote environmental related projects and Green Economy initiatives. A total of 111 metropolitan and local municipalities have competed for the awards and the following emerged victorious: Metropolitan Municipality| Position | Prize Money | Winning Metro |
| The Overall Winner | R3,5 million | Ekurhuleni |
| First Runner Up | R3 million | Ethekwini |
| Second Runner Up | R2,5 million | City of Cape Town |
| Position | Prize Money | Winning Municipality |
| The Overall Winner | R3,5 million | Greater Tzaneen |
| First Runner Up | R3 million | Newcastle |
| Second Runner Up | R2,5 million | Drakenstein |
