CAP’s Short to Medium Term Project Plans

Introduction

_{iLembe District Municipality/Stanger Pilot Project}

We are all affected by multiple sources of pollution from various industries which are not properly regulated and/or held accountable by local or national government.

Lack of monitoring stations means we also faced with the problem “you cannot manage what you cannot measure”.

People can see, smell, and feel the effects of this pollution but have no way of knowing how their health is being compromised.

Some communities in the district are increasingly concerned that environmental issues in their neighbourhoods are being ignored, delayed, or scrapped due to a lack of funds, leaving them exposed to ongoing pollution problems and vulnerable to exploitation by disengaged unscrupulous polluters.

CAP will focus on the iLembe District Municipality area for the implementation of its pilot projects. We believe that the iLembe District Municipality can set and achieve new internationally recognised environmental standards by collaborating with the communities and supporting our projects. We hope that our successes with the pilot project will be replicated across the country.

The identified sources of air pollution in the iLembe District Municipality include emissions from the national N2 route, sugarcane burning, toxins from the Class A – High Hazard Waste landfill site, the diesel-powered peaking power station, legal and illegal landfills, international airport, paper mill, sugar mills, abattoir, and from various other industries.

We are all feeling the effects of a nation in the grips of the economic crisis caused by an unprecedented sequence of events, the decimation of the national coffers by State Capture and its concomitant corruption, the COVID 19 pandemic, the violent destructive riots in KwaZulu-Natal (KZN), and the devastation caused by the April and May 2022 floods in KZN.

It is understandable that the government needs to focus its efforts on short-, medium- and long-term reconstruction and economic revival after these disasters. There is no doubt that government funding deficits affecting all sections of the population will continue for the foreseeable future, particularly in the financing of environmental projects.

CAP believes that we must “Own the Problem” and provide solutions through private funding, engagement with communities, and collaboration with local and national government.

Let us remember the Nelson Mandela’s words “It is easy to break down and destroy. The heroes are those who make peace and build.” – July 2008