Nature reserve and communities collide in Cape Town’s landfill controversy as Coastal Park nears capacity

The Coastal Park Landfill, in close proximity to the larger False Bay Nature Reserve in Cape Town, is rapidly approaching its maximum capacity, projected to be reached by September 2026. To mitigate this imminent waste crisis, the City of Cape Town proposes extending the landfill’s height from 45 metres to 67m above sea level. 

But the proposal has drawn sharp criticism from surrounding communities and groups, including whether this is the right way to deal with the escalating waste crisis and that informal settlements already breach the site’s buffer zone, allegedly contravening the permit for operating the site. 

According to the city, the height extension would extend the landfill’s lifespan to September 2028.

Extending the lifespan of the landfill by two years will also extend the lifespan of the Vissershok Municipal Landfill Site by about two years to 15 years.

But this proposed expansion is mired in controversy as informal settlements around the site have encroached directly on to what should be a 400m buffer zone, raising significant environmental and social risks.

The city, in response to Daily Maverick, acknowledged that “unlawful occupation of land” had occurred within the landfill’s buffer zone and it was working through required legal processes to correct this. The inhabitants in the buffer zone have been issued eviction notices.

According to a city statement, operation of a landfill in contravention of permit conditions may result in a fine of up to R10-million or imprisonment of up to 10 years.

Read more: South African municipal dumps are a mess, despite threats of court action

Vrygrond community outcry

Michael Khumalo, who runs a recycling centre in Vrygrond and chairs the Vrygrond Community Development Forum — which covers Xakabantu, Overcome Heights, Dubai and Capricorn informal settlements — said the community was frustrated by a lack of consultation.

“We would have expected the first thing is first to engage the community that is going to be affected by anything to come. But that has not happened. In fact what we see, we see in newspapers and so on,” said Khumalo.

He said that at a recent community meeting, it was resolved that the Vrygrond community would organise a march on 2 August to deliver a memorandum of demands addressed to the mayor— including calls to address the lack of service delivery.

Khumalo said people were “living in terrible conditions” and that many had been there for years, deserving respect and mitigation of their living conditions.

When it came to the community moving further on to the buffer zone, Khumalo said this was a contradiction from the city, as it said the area was a nature reserve where people could not live and small businesses could not operate, yet the landfill itself was in the nature reserve, and the city was looking at expanding it.

Khumalo said the city’s massive recycling plant had been constructed within the nature reserve area, implying a double standard where large businesses were allowed, but small, community-driven ones like his were not.

Speaking to Daily Maverick while overlooking the landfill, Khumalo described it as a “gold mine” because it contained a lot of recyclable materials such as metal and plastic, that should not have been buried.

He said that the community had been living off the landfill site for years by picking up reusable and recyclable materials and selling these to buy-back centres – this was one of the few employment opportunities available to the community.

Brian Nkhata, a Vrygrond resident and part of the Back to Work campaign, and from the recycling association in the Southfield area, said he was also deeply concerned about the plans for the expansion of the landfill.

He said that he had seen people dumping recyclable materials on the landfill site and recounted that the city’s actions, such as using a large truck to destroy dumped materials, prevented people from recovering recyclables. 

Khumalo said, “You don’t fix your shortcomings by expanding. Even if you expand [the landfill], you’re going to have a bigger mountain in a short space of time because you are not dealing with the problem. The issue is how do we divert stuff that ends up at the landfill, which should not end up there.”

He believed that this was where small community-owned recycling businesses like his, having buy-back centres and working with waste-pickers, should be focused on and supported. 

Read more: SA needs to put our waste in the ‘proper’ place, reduce the production and extend its value

Nkhata shared his experience with Daily Maverick. He initially did not know what recycling was, but quickly learnt he could earn a living from it.

Since becoming involved in recycling around Vrygrond, he has joined a recycling association and attends meetings and seminars related to recycling. He said many others in the community depended on the landfill site for their livelihood through recycling, just like him.

Vrygrond resident Jeanette Manuel has struggled with unemployment for years, but now she makes baked goods which she sells at a complex created out of recycled materials, based at Khumalo’s recycling centre.

When asked about the community moving on to the buffer zone around the landfill, Manuel said some had moved on to the landfill’s boundary wall temporarily due to severe flooding that destroyed their homes during heavy rains last year. 

She said that this was not a permanent move, as residents needed a dry, safe and warm place to stay, and they knew where the boundary was. 

She said that the community simply expected the city to consider them as “human beings” who had no other place to go.

Friends of Zeekoevlei and Rondevlei (FOZR) vice-chairperson Tom Schwerdtfeger said: “Cape Town is running out of space for landfill sites. We should be in top gear with recycling initiatives and reducing the amount of waste going to landfill as much as possible. 

“The cost of waste removal is going to increase dramatically in the coming years – Vissershok is in Tableview. If waste has to be transported from Simon’s Town across the city, it is going to cost a fortune, let alone concerns about traffic congestion,” said Schwerdtfeger.

Destruction of the natural environment

Schwerdtfeger told Daily Maverick that the expansion “cannot be considered” while there were people inhabiting the buffer zone. He said that the buffer zone had not been maintained since 2020, leading to the destruction of the natural environment in the nature reserve.

“If the current site is unable to meet its licensing conditions, then there can be no scope for expansion. Therefore, the land invasion must be dealt with, with urgency, before the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) proceeds further,” said Schwerdtfeger.

Schwerdtfeger said the FOZR understood the need for the application for the height extension, as no alternative site for landfilling had been secured to succeed the Coastal Park Landfill Site. 

“This in itself is of great concern to FOZR. Refuse removal in Cape Town is probably going to become a much bigger concern in years to come. [The] Vissershok Waste Management Plant is too far away to service the southern regions of Cape Town in a cost-effective manner, and just the traffic implications alone are hugely concerning,” said Schwerdtfeger.

He said the Slangetjiebos section of False Bay Nature Reserve experienced an influx of informal settlers during the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020. 

Schwerdtfeger said the number of informal settlers had continued to increase and that there were around 1,600 informal settlements. 

“We are hugely concerned that this section of the nature reserve might be lost forever unless the city takes a firm stance on ensuring the integrity of our nature reserves,” he said. 

Read more: Municipal waste failures undermine South Africans’ right to a healthy environment, committee told

Slangetjiebos is part of False Bay Nature Reserve, which is a Ramsar site, and Schwerdtfeger said there had been many proven health risks associated with people living near the landfill. 

“The proposed expansion of Coastal Park Landfill Site exacerbates all these points.” 

Public health and safety concerns 

Schwerdtfeger said that with an increase in height, “it is anticipated that the methane content within the landfill will increase about 19% over and above current levels,” said Schwerdtfeger.

When it came to the potential risks of the increase in landfill height without addressing the buffer zone issue first, Schwerdtfeger said they would see an increase in the probability of fires caused by more [waste] pickers on the site and associated health concerns.

Schwerdtfeger said the city had not adequately conferred with residents and groups on the buffer zone issue. 

“Pamphlets should be distributed to people living within the buffer zone, highlighting the dangers associated with living in the area. Regular interventions and site visits should be conducted by the city health department. If [there had been] adequate engagement, would people still be living there ?” asked Schwerdtfeger.

Zeekoevlei resident Susanne Karcher told Daily Maverick, “I used to go to the landfill monitoring meetings from the city… but I actually stopped going because I felt it’s basically a tick-box exercise.”

Karcher said it had always been pointed out at these meetings that informal settlement growth in the buffer zone was a critical deviation. She said that everyone would shake their heads and express how terrible this was, but felt that there wasn’t any urgency to do something about it, which was why she stopped attending.

“How can the city even start discussing the heightening, or want to discuss the heightening of a landfill, and expanding the footprint — if already in the current footprint, the operational conditions are not legal… We have a 400m buffer zone and informal settlements go all the way to the fence… and the situation is actually getting worse,” said Karcher.

Karcher said she understood the landfill constraints of the city, particularly that they had only two landfill sites currently operational (Coastal Park Landfill and the Visserhok Landfill).

“They are between a rock and a hard place… but I also think it is gross negligence,” said Karcher.

Karcher suggested that instead of allowing informal settlements to encroach on valuable nature reserves, the city should map and redevelop existing “brown sites” (for example, former industrial areas) for affordable housing, arguing that this would reduce land invasions.

Cape Town’s waste strategy

The city is in the basic pre-application Basic Assessment Report (paBAR) phase of project approval for its “possible application” for height extension at Coastal Park Landfill.

The paBAR was available for public review and comment to be incorporated into the formal basic application report, which will be submitted alongside the environmental authorisation to the regulator for approval. The paBAR commenting period concluded on Friday, 25 July 2025.

Mandy Marr, the city’s councillor in the area, said: “There is no other alternative in place at the moment… It [the landfill] is going to be full by September next year if we don’t extend the height. So that is the issue that we’re facing at the moment.”

Marr said people had invaded the area and were within the landfill’s 400m buffer zone. This meant the landfill was now not operating according to the permit, due to the growth of informal settlements since the Covid-19 pandemic.

Asked if a new site had been earmarked to supersede Coastal Park Landfill, the city confirmed that it had identified a possible site, and that the public would be informed when the EIA process began. 

“The city is preparing for an EIA process linked to the new site and the land parcels earmarked will be identified during the EIA process.”

According to a city statement in response to queries from Daily Maverick, “This extension is intended to accommodate the increasing volumes of waste generated by Cape Town’s residents, ensuring continued access to safe, compliant waste disposal services while protecting both the environment and public health.

“Without the additional airspace, the City of Cape Town could face significant traffic disruptions and socioeconomic strain on both residents and businesses.”

According to the statement, these impacts could be avoided if approval were granted. 

It also said that the city’s existing refuse transfer stations, the Swartklip Refuse Transfer Station (17km east of the Coastal Park Landfill Site), among others, would be upgraded from an infrastructural perspective to receive greater volumes of waste, particularly household waste, and this would ensure continued waste management service delivery. 

In the long term, the city said a refuse transfer centre was planned for construction at the Coastal Park Landfill and was slated to begin operations in the fourth quarter of 2030 or sooner.

“The city is also working to extend available landfill airspace and defer the need for additional landfill capacity by encouraging waste diversion,” said the city’s statement.

Among plans for this was to extend the city’s Think Twice recyclables collection service to more areas in the coming months, complemented by swap shops, where residents could swap their recyclables for groceries or vouchers. 

“Builders’ rubble is currently being repurposed for use in [the] construction of roads and other construction projects. There are also plans to introduce additional drop-off sites, where garden waste is chipped (at the larger sites) for off-site composting, and recyclables are sorted for sale into the markets,” said the city’s statement.

More information on planned efforts to reduce reliance on landfills can be found in the city’s waste strategy.

The city manages about 2.1 million tonnes of waste annually, with a diversion rate of 31.53% – but like other cities, it faces major challenges in managing waste due to rapid urbanisation, population growth and increasing consumption patterns. This is what we see unfolding at the Coastal Park Landfill.

The City of Cape Town officially launched its new waste strategy on 17 July 2025, outlining a roadmap to achieve its vision of a clean city, where residents and businesses have access to quality, well-regulated, sustainable and affordable waste services. DM