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By Watcher on the Walkway

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SEBETSA —
After months of rising pressure, public complaints, and heavy media coverage (including this publication’s), the Sibeko Group has announced the closure of the Sebetsa Island Municipal Landfill, citing “environmental priorities and the need for sustainable urban development.” Streets will get quieter. Air will get lighter. And real estate values? Already climbing.

But where does the waste go?

According to an internal memo obtained by The Bulletin, two new waste processing and landfill sites are set to be constructed near Luthada, the rural township across the uMthunzi, long treated like Nqoleni’s back room.

The plan was quietly fast-tracked through the Khaya Municipal Council under what officials called the “Green Island Transition Strategy.” Public input from Luthada was “not required” because the land is already zoned for “low-impact industrial use.”

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🗑️ From One Backyard to Another

For years, Nqoleni Integrated Waste Corp. (NIWC), a partially public service with roots in Sebetsa’s community cleanup crews, has operated small-scale recycling and waste sorting hubs across the island. But as Sebetsa’s population surged and tourist-facing development intensified, NIMBY politics took over—no one wanted to live near the dump anymore.

“The landfill’s been here since I was a kid,” said Boikanyo N., a long-time garbage sorter with NIWC. “Now they say it’s unsanitary? It’s been unsanitary.”

Sibeko PR materials describe the Luthada sites as “modern, fully contained, and community-positive.” But early renderings show open-air waste mounds, chemical runoff basins, and “limited buffer zones” between the landfills and the Luthada farm belt.

One farm—Redfern Acres South—sits directly along the proposed haul road. Its water table is already vulnerable. Local farmers were not contacted.

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💰 “Green Progress,” Sibeko-Style

“We clean Sebetsa by dirtying Luthada,” says Dr. Nonhle Maseko, environmental planner and longtime critic of KhayaGrid policy. “It’s a reshuffle, not a solution.”

The Bulletin has confirmed that NIWC will lose its contract for primary waste control, replaced by a Sibeko subsidiary named EcoVantage, which has no public record and appears to have been incorporated just four months ago.

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✊ A Growing Divide

As Sebetsa’s skyline gleams, Luthada’s fields brace for trucks.

“They can’t build this without resistance,” said a quiet voice during a town meeting Monday night. “We may not be on the island. But we still live under the same sky.”

The Bulletin will continue to follow the story. Especially as surveyors arrive this week to mark the ground where cabbage used to grow.

By Grain & Grit Desk

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SEBETSA —
After years of rising complaints, thick summer stench, and multiple reports of children developing rashes after swimming near the east bank, the infamous Sector 3 sewage outlet—which for decades dumped untreated waste directly into the uMthunzi River near high-density housing—has been shut down.

The pipeline, nicknamed “the snake” by locals, had long been considered an open secret. Despite a decade of official denials, the odor told the truth. And so did the water.

Now, in what the Sibeko Group is calling a “landmark investment in public sanitation,” the waste will still end up in the uMthunzi—but pumped several kilometers downstream, far past residential zones and into what officials describe as “a controlled outflow basin.” The project, completed over three weeks with little fanfare, was funded entirely by Sibeko Infrastructure Trust.

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💧 What Changes, What Doesn’t

• Closed: The Sector 3 pipe mouth beneath the Bahlali footbridge.
• Opened: A new downstream connection, near the edge of the marshland buffer zone.
• Still Unresolved: Treatment levels remain unconfirmed, and the Khaya Order Directorate denied The Bulletin access to water quality reports.

While the immediate area around central Sebetsa will see less direct contamination, ecologists warn that pushing pollution further downriver simply moves the harm, especially to fishing communities closer to the uMthunzi delta.

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🧼 Reactions

“It smells better, sure. But that doesn’t mean it’s clean,” says Anele D., who lives near the old pipe site. “We asked for sewage treatment, not sewage relocation.”

“The kids are back in the water,” one grandmother told us. “I’m not saying it’s safe—I’m saying it’s summer.”

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💰 A Gift? Or a Pressure Valve?

Official statements from Sibeko Infrastructure say the project is “proof of our commitment to public health and environmental stewardship.”

But let’s be honest: the timing follows a viral video last month showing schoolchildren wading in visibly brown runoff, and a Bulletin front-page photo of fish belly-up near Makhulu Pier.

So yes—the pipe is closed. The smell is fading. But let’s not lose the plot:

The same people who poisoned the water now ask us to clap as they drag the poison a few feet further.

The Bulletin acknowledges the change as a step forward. But not a clean slate.