City of Johannesburg’s Executive Mayor, Mpho Parks Tau spoke to delegates at the Johannesburg Waste Summit 2015 at the Sandton Convention Center on Tuesday 24 March.

The purpose of the summit was to engage stakeholders in dialogue about innovative ways to transform the way we deal with our waste.

In his key note address, Executive Mayor Tau said that to often we “go back to old habits – going back to the norm rather than achieving what it is set out to achieve…Old habits do not easily die unless we do something about it.”

He also stressed the importance of waste as a platform for socio-economic change. By empowering individuals to use waste as a revenue resource, we will be better able to change the perception that waste is something to be discarded at the City’s expense and to the detriment of all.

Say Tau: “For the mayoral committee of COJ we have seen waste as an opportunity to access the people of Johannesburg. Our vision for Joburg 2040 is to create a resilient, liveable city. There are a number of things we have to do dependent on partnerships we have to develop between the city, citizens, NGOs and businesses. All stakeholders need build this into a world class African city.”

Tau continued by saying that waste collection and sorting is an opportunity to create local jobs and enterprises with low skill-level requirements. To do this, “we need to change our waste management practices.

In that way we can establish local enterprises and create local job and contribute to the reduction of greenhouse gas, depending on how we choose to dispose. Waste has now become a resource. Using diff methods of disposal, we can reduce the emissions generated by trucks used to collect waste.”

“It is possible at the most basic level in the households where we can make the most change, through Pikitup where we can mobilise the citizens of Johannesburg.”

In order to do this, Tau says we need to “change focus from waste company to generators of waste. Separation at source should go to SOURCE: production. We need to rethink packaging to discourage waste disposal. What happens at the level of production? What happens at all levels of production to reduce waste generation?”

These are the choice we have to make, according to Tau, we have to engage every single household and create a consciousness in the minds of people relating to how we respond to the disposal of waste.