Contents of December 2004

EDITORIAL
Golf course survey and caring for the sea

UPFRONT
News

IDENTIFYING INVADERS
The Cat’s Claw Creeper and the Black Locust

BOOK REVIEWS

TREE OF THE ISSUE
The White Ironwood (Vepris lanceolata)

FEATURES

The 2004 IAIAsa National Premium Award

Sustainability in housing

Recycling electronic waste

Trading places

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EDITORIAL

Golf course survey and caring for the sea
UGF was very interested to receive the communication that the Provincial Department of Environmental Affairs and Development Planning (DEADP) in the Western Cape has appointed a team to probe golf course developments (and polo fields) in the southern Cape, specifically along the Garden Route, where there are, reputedly, over 30 of these estates in existence, with another 10 at proposal and planning stages. MCA Planners, a group consisting of development planners, engineers and environmental consultants, has been appointed, following a rigorous consultation process by the department, to investigate the issue of golf courses in the area.

Residents have been complaining bitterly that the golf courses, which have mushroomed in the area, put a strain on scarce resources such as land and water. There have been complaints about élitism related to such developments and rising property prices, making it un¬affordable for average earners to buy property along the treasured Garden Route. The MCA Group is to provide a status quo report, identifying existing impacts of golf courses, existing policy and practice, norms and standards, including impacts on the ecology and the benefits of job creation, during and after construction, and the significance to the economy in general. The review is due to be produced towards the end of the year and will be followed by draft policy guidelines by March next year.

A contribution by environmental consultant Bryony Walmsley in the impact assessment association’s (IAIAsa) latest newsletter makes the highly pertinent point that South Africa does not have clearly defined policy and planning instruments to guide development. She talks about the issue of whether a certain piece of land should be used for a certain land use or not – and contentious issues, she mentions, include landfill sites, golf estates and low cost housing developments. “We don’t have these clear guidance documents in place in most cases and, until we do, there will continue to be conflict over the suitability of some development proposals,” comments Walmsley. 

This initiative by DEADP may be the start of putting much needed policy and planning instruments into place. UGF commented in an Editorial (UGF Nov/Dec 2002) that, although the magazine’s policy was to encourage and support environmentally sound golf course developments, particularly in urban areas where they could play an important role in the conservation of open space and wildlife habitat, we were of the definite opinion that the Garden Route was being threatened by the possibility of “wall-to-wall golf estate development” – “enclaves for the very rich”. A balance needs to be achieved and proper planning procedures put into place to prevent what appears to be an outbreak of ad hoc development with no account being taken of cumulative impacts. 

The launch of the ‘Entanglement Campaign’ by DEAT, as part of National Marine Week in October this year, was another piece of good news, which links up nicely with the book that we have reviewed in this issue, entitled ‘The End of the Line’- a thought-provoking and frightening exposé of overfishing, world-wide. The entanglement campaign supports this year’s Marine Week theme: “From mountains, catchments, river streams to the ocean floor – a nation at work to sustain our seas.” The theme and the campaign highlight the fact that much of the damage done to our coastal environment starts far inland and comes in the form of discarded plastic pipes, bags and the strips and bands from plastic packaging which collect in stormwater drains and eventually wash into the ocean – so often maiming and killing marine animals.

Mention should also be made, relating to the book review, of the recent CITES listing of the Great White Shark on Appendix II. The trade in teeth, jaws and fins, along with habitat destruction, has decimated the Great White Shark population. These fish are particularly vulnerable because of their low reproductive capacity and slow growth. According to the International Fund for Animal Welfare, bather protection programmes using nets are also threatening the population – and many beaches have removed or are mooting the removal of nets. The recent shark attack on Fish Hoek beach illustrates the fact that man through his activities is so often on a collision course with other elements in nature – it may now be, (with apologies to Jaws) “safe” (or safer) for the shark “to go back into the water” but not for man. - Carol Knoll

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UPFRONT

Sustainable building best practice awards
At the SB’04 Africa conference, which was held at the Spier Estate in the Western Cape in September this year, Best Practice Awards were presented for the Africa Region. Projects built during the past 10 years were eligible for entry. Three awards and three commendations were given, in recognition of noteworthy examples of sustainable buildings appropriate to developing countries.

The adjudication panel was convened by Jeremy Gibberd, an architect and researcher at the CSIR, who developed the user-friendly assessment system used as the basis of the evaluation for the Best Practice Awards.

The adjudicators were: Prof Tom Woolley, architect and sustainable building expert from Queen’s University in Northern Ireland; Tanmay Tathagat, architect and senior programme manager: energy efficiency at the International Institute for Energy Conservation in New Delhi, India; Prof Kazuo Iwamura of the Faculty of Environmental and Information Studies at the Musashi Institute of Technology in Yokohama, Japan; and Prof Paul Bowen, quantity surveyor, Department of Construction Economics and Management, University of Cape Town.

Staff housing at Twin Streams Environmental Centre
This award was given to the Twin Streams EEC in Mtunzini, KZN, in the category of Residential Projects. The building comprises two semi-detached units, accommodating comfortable bachelor apartments with bathrooms and kitchenettes, serving as accommodation and as an educational tool to demonstrate sustainable living. The architect was Andy Horn of Eco Design.

The judges commented that the design of the building was responsive to the site, in a hot, humid, dune coastal forest, and incorporated innovative alternative materials, such as sandbags and locally grown timber poles. The use of renewable and efficient energy was also considered to be a strong point of the project.

Community participation was noted as being an important contributory factor to the success of the project. Local communities were involved in collecting sand, making sandbags and harvesting timber poles. A model was built to facilitate community involvement.

Lynedoch Community and Educational Centre
The Lynedoch Centre forms part of the Spier Estate, near Stellenbosch in the Western Cape (see UGF Jan/Feb 2002, page 36). The award was made in the category Community Projects and the architects were Alastair Rendall and Gita Goven of ARG Design. The project involved the conversion and extension of a shed to accommodate a primary school, a post-graduate Sustainability Institute, performance arts rehearsals and performances, small-scale business offices and storage.

The judges commented that the use made of compressed clay blocks, rockstore heating and cooling, low-energy interventions, as well as the reuse of an existing building, displayed a sound understanding of environmental design and sustainable building principles.

Africa Centre for Health and Population Studies
The award for the Africa Centre was made in the category Commercial Projects and the Africa Centre’s new facilities are in Mtubatuba in KZN. The architect was Steve Kinsler of East Coast Architects. The project is a medical research initiative, comprising both office and field based research into health and population issues, including HIV. The building is located in a 13 ha rural setting close to the community that is being studied.

The judges commented that the building, comprising four discrete office research ‘pods’, displayed a distinctive ‘African architectural’ style and made use of local skills. They said that the 15 m high water tower/solar chimney was central in contributing to the energy efficiency of the building and made a strong visual statement.

2004 Concrete Manufacturers Association Awards
The winning project teams of the 2004 CMA Awards for Excellence competition were acknowledged during a gala banquet in Kyalami, Gauteng, in October. Urban Green File looks at some of the many projects that were given awards in the categories of Concrete Block Paving and Concrete Retaining Walls.

Overall Trophy Winner: Industrial Paving category  Stock Road Station and Bus Terminus

This project provided pavers capable of carrying large buses, which turn frequently, as well as a comfortable pedestrian area for the station plaza. The project’s successful execution won the team a Cathay Pigments Concrete Block Paving Trophy.  

The area successfully combines the colours and textures of concrete and tarmac pavement in the creation of an interesting community space. In order to create straight lines, a special interlocking edge paver in terracotta and grey was used, and the bus terminus was laid with interlocking 80mm pavers. Flat rectangular traditional size (220x110x 70mm, no chamfer) concrete pavers make up the plaza, resulting in a comfortable walking surface. 

Judges’ comment
The landscaping and creative response to community areas were well executed on this large project. Despite cost constraints, which limited the choice of colours, excellent pattern work and a visually stimulating layout were other factors which influenced the decision.

Project team
Architects: ARG Architects
Civil Engineer: Iliso Consulting Engineers
Contractor: Highland Paving
Manufacturer: False Bay Bricks (Cape)

National Winner: Concrete Retaining Block Walls category: Dimension Data Campus
Terraforce L18 retaining wall blocks with a rock-face finish were installed in this terraced application to accommodate spectator seating and vertical walls. 

Engineer, Johan Joubert, did the necessary stability checks and came up with a viable and cost-effective cross-section. Stability concerns about the section with a steep incline were overcome by driving two meter Y16 bars into the blocks and then sealing them with bentonite.

Vertical wing-walls and sections tying in with the buildings surrounding this oval were constructed with the normal reinforced earth technique - that is, woven fabric stretched into the backfill and clamped between the L18 blocks.

It took eight months and 38 000 blocks to complete this prestigious installation.

Judges’ comment
Well engineered and exhibiting good over-growth. A good variety and combination of materials blends in well with the architecture.

Project team
Architect: Portal Partnership Incorporated
Engineer: Kantey and Templer
Geotechnical design engineer: Foundation and Slopes Stability Engineering
Quantity surveyor: Nicholson Nel Welsh and Partners
Contractor: Group Five Building
Retaining wall sub-contractor: Bullen and Campbell
Manufacturer: Infraset

National winner: Concrete Retaining Block Walls: Hindhope, Cape Town
Providing level space for a tennis court, swimming pool and forecourt, as well as garden space around a new residence on a steeply sloping site, was a daunting task for the architects, Jane Baldwin and Associates.

The project began with the building of a level platform for a tennis court, using imported cement and stabilised sand. It was retained with a 5,5 m wall built with Terraforce L11 blocks and a stormwater discharge cascade was incorporated into the wall.

Another L11 block wall was built above the tennis court in a stepped-back, plant supportive fashion, across the width of the property. A level platform, supported on a vertical composite wall, was incorporated as a focal point. Curved 4x4 stairways lead up to the platform.

Below street level, and supporting the steep driveway, yet another L11 block wall was built. Along one side of the property a long block wall connects several lateral walls. Elsewhere it was necessary to build further L11 terraces, also incorporating 4x4 block stairways.

The installation was softened with cascading perennial plants. Leylandii were planted to create a hedge on the front retaining wall. This broke the height of the wall and provided an effective screen. Suitable hedging plants such as Hebe and Lavender were used to provide definition and demarcate the top of the walls.

Judges’ comment
Interesting use of different blocks and excellent plant coverage. Very good integration of design element and levels.

Project team
Engineer: B.V.I. Consulting Engineers
ain Contractor: Andy Steward Construction
Contractor: Decorton Retaining Systems
Manufacturer: Klapmuts Concrete
Licensor: Terraforce

National winner: Concrete Block Paving: House Hoogenhout, Stellenbosch
The project brief was to create a driveway that would look natural and blend with the historical setting of this Stellenbosch property. Tosca cobbles ensured the creation of a rustic look for the paved surface. This was complemented with river stone inlays and a river stone channel on one side of the driveway.                   

Judges’ comment
The judges noted that in terms of the environment, the project demonstrated an appropriate and sensitive choice of materials.

Project team
Architect/Designer: John Mellish Brick Paving
Contractor: John Mellish Brick Paving
Manufacturer: Stoneage

National winner: Concrete Block Paving: Braamfontein Urban Regeneration
The downtown areas of Johannesburg are undergoing extensive rejuvenation to reverse decades of urban decay. In this section, close to the Civic Centre off Amershof Street in Braamfontein, an intricate and technically difficult project was successfully completed with the application of Smartstone’s cobblestones and pavers.

Judge’s comment
Good quality and varied materials combined with well-chosen colouring worked well in this intricate and technically difficult project.

Project team
Architect: Grosskopff Lombart Huybrects and Associates
Engineer: KAYP
Quantity Surveyor: Norval Wentzel Steinberg
Contractor: Blucor Projects
Manufacturer: Smartstone Midrand

Wayne’s Wailing Wall:  An anecdote about doing the right thing
One of the more interesting elements of the EIA for the Mozal Smelter was ensuring that the International Finance Corporation (IFC) and other lenders requirements were satisfied. For the most part these requirements were met implicitly through the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) that was conducted, but there were several elements that took additional effort to complete to the satisfaction of the lenders – including adapting to the new 1998 World Bank Pollution Abatement and Prevention Handbook guidelines. The original EIA had been completed relative to the 1995 guidelines and the proposed doubling-up of the smelter was based strongly on the principle of mirroring the first phase of the project.

It also became clear that there was likely to be a potential impact on a small group of houses that was situated within the harbour area and which had been inhabited for some time. Initial reports indicated that these were CFM (The Mozambican Harbour and Ports Authority) houses which had been inhabited largely by CFM employees over a considerable period of time. The groups of houses were in a rather poor condition and were clearly very old, although some effort had gone into preparing and maintaining small gardens.

The potential impact was related to the fact that the expanded smelter would require additional vehicles to transport alumina and petroleum coke from the harbour to the smelter. On the slight incline that passed the group of houses, the vehicles were liable, under certain circumstances, to exceed the noise limits stipulated by the IFC. This was identified as an impact that required mitigation and the developer committed to ensuring that a solution would be found to make certain that the impact was reduced to acceptable levels.

Before consulting the community, a number of potential mitigation measures were identified and evaluated. The first, and perhaps most obvious, solution was relocating the people. This offered a range of potential advantages, including returning the port area to non-residential land-use. But there were many challenges to effecting the relocation, not least of which was resistance to the idea from the inhabitants, as well as finding suitable alternative areas to which they could be relocated. The only suitable alternative land, which was potentially available for CFM, was already occupied by informal settlements. The time frame and complexity of the possible relocation meant that this option was not viable.

Alternative methods of mitigating the impact were investigated and these included, amongst other possibilities, the construction of an acoustic barrier. Initial indications in the preliminary design of the noise barrier were that a wall of some 24 plus meters in height would need to extend along the road section for a distance of some 120 meters on either side of the road.

The early drawings of the wall were so ugly and intimidating that the noise barrier became dubbed ‘Wayne’s Wailing Wall’ – in reference to the engineering manager who was custodian of the EIA for the smelter expansion and inherited the implementation of the Environmental Management Plan (EMP) process. There were immediate concerns about blocking off sunlight, creating tunnel vision on the roadway, restricting access and several others - and there was a feeling that there just had to be a better way.

At this stage, attention turned to trying to improve the silencers on the haul vehicles, a project dubbed ‘The Silence of the Vans’. After some very promising early results, the silencers which were finally selected to minimise power loss did not, in themselves, result in a sufficient reduction in vehicle noise.

A third solution that was investigated was the concept of providing sound proofing to the roadside dwellings. Double-glazing and other acoustic treatments were mooted. Several designs were developed but none, in isolation, would have resulted in the effectiveness needed to block the noise levels to an acceptable level. It became evident that no single solution would result in adequate mitigation of the impact – and the options considered were the reduction of vehicle noise together with either the acoustic wall or the acoustic treatment of the houses. Nonetheless, given the dimensions of the wall, it was felt that residents might be happier with the double-glazing on the windows and another minor treatment, which was in fact the low cost option.

As part of the routine public consultation process, the residents were given the two main alternatives to consider. The consultation was managed through CFM and conducted by an independent person and all the results were formally recorded and evaluated. Interestingly enough, and contrary to some original perceptions, there was overwhelming support for the wall option.

Walls appear to play an important role in Mozambican society and it is not uncommon to see a huge wall around a property where there is a very small house – in some cases, no house at all. A great deal of care was taken with the design of the wall. Because of the slight noise reduction of the vehicles, which was augmented through the disabling of vehicle exhaust breaks and through driver training, the design height of the wall was reduced from the original four meters to closer to three meters. Vehicle and pedestrian gates were included at locations chosen by the residents. The road side of the walls was clad with ‘engineered’ panels of acoustically adsorbing material. Local river reeds, that were treated with fire retardent, were packed vertically in steel frames which had expanded metal, front and back, to contain them. These panels not only played an important role in reducing noise levels but also visually softened the walls. The effectiveness of this local reed material had been previously tested at the CSIR laboratories, in order to quantify its sound adsorbing properties.

For all of its perceived disadvantages, the wall was rated the desirable option and ultimately constructed as described above. The status, security and safety of this group of residents, living in this small community within the port’s industrial area, has ultimately been enhanced. Measured sound power levels showed that the World Bank guidelines had been met, within the residences, as a result of the construction of the noise barrier.

The point of the anecdote is simply that a commitment was made to find a solution and that commitment ultimately translated into a solution.

There were many occasions where the idea of the wall was openly and roundly criticised. It seemed to everyone that the wall was a case of complete overkill and that the money could be much better spent by investing in some additional infrastructure in the area, that would surely appease the residents. Most importantly, no-one on the project team seriously believed that the residents would choose the option of the wall, because everyone felt that the double-glazing option would make far more sense. The residents proved us all wrong – well, nearly all of us.

The person who was not proven wrong was the person who made the commitment to find the solution. There were many occasions when it would have been quite easy to wriggle out of the commitment – after all, it was not a hugely significant impact. That person believes that when a developer makes a commitment, the commitment must be honoured – but, also, in a manner that respects the desires of the people affected. 

This anecdote told by Environmental Assessment practitioner Sean O’ Beirne of SE Solutions was one of four used by Annarie Boer, also of SE Solutions, to illustrate how small acts contribute to sustainable development – in a paper she presented at the IAIAsa National Conference held in the Drakensberg in October this year. The anecdote illustrates the heart, spirit and ethics sometimes in evidence behind the scenes. The engineering manager, Wayne, asked to remain anonymous.

The Giant Bullfrog Survey Take part and enter the competition!
The Endangered Wildlife Trust (EWT)and the University of Pretoria invite you to participate in the first national Giant Bullfrog Survey. This survey enlists the support and participation of members of the public in a project aimed at acquiring Giant Bullfrog distribution data to develop effective conservation measures in key habitats.

Members of the public are invited to photograph any Giant Bull¬frogs they encounter and to submit their photographs, together with one completed entry form per locality, to stand a chance of winning great prizes! 

Current descriptions of the Giant Bullfrog’s (Pyxicephalus adspersus) geographic distribution are extremely poor, due to the fact that these frogs spend most of the year in aestivation (a type of dormancy) underground. Following the first heavy rains every spring, these frogs spend only a short period above ground breeding and feeding. There are therefore only very brief ‘windows of opportunity’ during which the presence of Giant Bullfrogs may be recorded at different localities within the species’ present distribution range.

To make maximum use of these ‘windows of opportunity’, the public is being asked to assist. Entry forms for the Giant Bullfrog Survey ask for basic information, including the place and date of bullfrog sightings and an estimate of how many bullfrogs were seen.

Members of the public are urged to take at least one close-up photograph of the side of any bullfrog they encounter, to allow us to distinguish between the two bullfrog species recognised in South Africa, by measuring the distance between the bullfrog’s eye and its ear. When the distance between the bullfrog’s eye and its ear is less than, or equal to, the diameter of its ear, the bullfrog can be confirmed to be African/Bushveld Bullfrog (Pyxicephalus edulis).

The Giant Bullfrog is listed as ‘Near-Threatened’ in southern Africa and is considered a flagship species for southern African grasslands. Although the species is allegedly already extinct in Swaziland, our knowledge of the distribution of these frogs in South Africa is currently inadequate for effective conservation planning. There is also reason to believe that this species may be far more threatened within the sub-region, where Giant Bullfrogs are suffering a precipitous decline due to industrial and urban development.

Although the destruction, degradation and fragmentation of grasslands and wetlands contribute the most to the decline of the Giant Bullfrog, the high mortality of these frogs on roads (usually at night after heavy thunder showers) is also of grave concern. Furthermore, direct persecution of Giant Bullfrogs for food and out of superstition-based fear, or for so-called ‘fun’ is having a negative impact on the species.

In response to the urgent need to conserve Giant Bullfrogs through increasing our knowledge of their habitat requirements and geographic distribution range, the ‘Giant Bullfrog Project’ which embraces a PhD research project conducted at the University of Pretoria, has been adopted as a project of the EWT.

Fuji South Africa has kindly donated three digital cameras that will be awarded to:
*            The participant that submits the best Giant Bullfrog photograph.
*            The participant that submits the best runner-up Giant Bullfrog photograph.
*            The participant that submits the most unusual Giant Bullfrog photograph.
*            MTN has donated two Nokia cell phones that will be awarded to two ‘lucky-draw’ photos.

A website www.giantbullfrog.org  has been created and survey entry forms can be downloaded (as an MS Word or Adobe Acrobat document) or, alternatively, the survey entry form can be completed online. Requests for the entry form can be emailed, faxed or posted 

Participants’ photographs and/or entry forms can be e-mailed to: cayetman@zoology.up.ac.za  or posted to: Bullfrog Survey, CFES, Room 2-1, Geography Building, University of Pretoria, 0002.

Giant Bullfrog Survey rules and regulations
•            The survey runs from 12:00 on 1 September 2004 to 12:00 on 1 May 2005.
•            Only photographs accompanied by completed entry forms will be considered for awards.

•           The judge’s decision is final.
•            Awards cannot be exchanged for cash.
•            Photographs that are submitted will not be returned.

The Giant Bullfrog Project is supported by Rand Merchant Bank, the Pretoria East branch of the Hunters and Game Conservation Association of South Africa and Arrow Bulk Marketing (Pty) Ltd.
Contact Caroline Yetman, University of Pretoria. Tel: (012) 420-4283. Cell: 082 581 5453. Email: cayetman@zoology.up.ac.za Website: www.giantbullfrog.org

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IDENTIFYING INVADERS

Cat’s Claw Creeper and Black Locust 
UGF’s regular column to help with the identification of invasive alien species and their control.

Macfadyena unguis-cati
The Cat’s Claw Creeper is thought to be a fairly recent introduction from South and Central America. It has very quickly become a major threat and is a declared Category 1 weed – meaning that landowners are required to remove it. The creeper was introduced as a garden ornamental and has escaped into the wild, where it is climbing into the canopies of indigenous forest trees and has become a serious problem in the Magoebaskloof area of Limpopo Province and around Pietermaritzburg in KZN. The weight of the creeper, which is very fast growing, can pull down branches and combined with the shading-out effect, it can kill tall forest trees. Its invasive status is that of transformer, which means that it can replace natural or semi-natural ecosystems, thereby altering their structure, integrity and functioning.

It is a vigorous, evergreen, woody climber, ascending by means of claw-like tendrils. From September and through into summer, it produces masses of large, bright yellow, trumpet-shaped flowers which have in the past made it a very popular garden plant. Gardeners are, however, becoming only too aware of its invasive properties and ability to damage other garden plants and structures, and have started the battle to get rid of it. There is no chemical registered for it and it is extremely difficult to control mechanically, as it regenerates vegetatively from tubers. It is also a prolific seeder, producing myriads of papery, wind dispersed seeds from it distinctive flat pods.

In 1999, a leaf feeding insect, Charidotis auroguttata, was released as a biocontrol but this has had limited success. (See UGF Sep/Oct 1999 page 4 and Mar/Apr 2000 page 11.) At present, there are four more biological control agents going through the process of obtaining permission for their release. Both the National Department of Agriculture (NDA) and the Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism (DEAT) are required to clear all biocontrol agents. Permission for the release of three of the insects has been given by the NDA and these are now with DEAT.

Hester Williams of the Weeds Research Division of the Plant Protection Research Institute is the entomologist working on biocontrol research for Macfadyena unguis-cati.
Email: williamssh@arc.agric.za 

Robinia pseudoacacia
The Black Locust is a deciduous tree which normally does not grow beyond 12 m in height and suckers freely, often forming thickets. It is a Category 2 invader which invades riverbanks and roadsides. It was introduced to South Africa from North America for its timber and fuel value, for donga reclamation and its ornamental value – it is common in the gardens of Johannesburg and has been used as a street tree. It is a transformer, pushing out natural vegetation and altering ecosystems and it competes with indigenous plants for the honey bees which pollinate it. According to the PPRI’s handbook ‘Rehabilitation Recommendations after Alien Plant Control’, invasive stands are abundant and wide¬spread in the Free State, and abundant locally in KZN, the Eastern Cape and Gauteng.

Its Category 2 status means that the tree needs to be removed and kept under control, except in specially authorised, demarcated areas where it is being grown for the commercial value of its wood or in fuel lots.

The young sprouts or suckers have long paired thorns for protection and this suckering ability makes the plant difficult to eradicate. When the tree is cut down, sucker production from the cut stump and the tree’s roots is stimulated. Systemic herbicides can be used on the cut stump to stop suckering. Re-sprouting may, however, recur a number of years after treatment, which means that follow-up monitoring is necessary.

The American Bramble

In the Jul/Aug 2004 issue of UGF, Rubus cuneifolius was featured but there was no photograph of the flowers provided. Below is a photograph of the plant in flower taken near the Monks Cowl Nature Conservation office in the Drakensberg in October. The exotic varieties of Rubus have large showy flowers with long petals, whereas the indigenous varieties have small flowers with short petals. Grasslands and forest edges in the area are heavily invaded by the thorny plant, which is a Category 1 weed and transformer of ecosystems. The American Bramble is said to be posing a huge threat to habitat on the Drakensberg range, where it is present in vast stands.

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BOOK REVIEWS

Author: Charles Clover
Publisher: Random House
How overfishing is changing the world and what we eat

This book, based on extensive research, is a fascinating read. Charles Clover, who is the Environment Editor of the UK’s Daily Telegraph, has done a global survey over the last seven years of the destruction caused to whole ecosystems and to economies by modern technological fishing. He says scientists are guilty of not communicating the real state of affairs to anyone except other scientists. He quotes Ray Beverton, who worked on mathematical modelling of how fish populations behave under fishing pressure, as saying that overfishing has much to do with authorities failing to act appropriately and in good time on scientific advice. He claims that the truth is that the world is running out of fish….and consumers, not just fishermen and politicians, must take responsibility for this.

The book is captivating from the first paragraph where the author asks the reader to “Imagine what people would say if a band of hunters strung a mile of net between two immense all-terrain vehicles and dragged it at speed across the plains of Africa. This fantastical assemblage….would scoop up everything in its way: predators… lumbering endangered herbivores… pregnant females would be swept up and carried along, with only the smallest juveniles able to wriggle through the mesh. The effect of dragging a huge iron bar across the savannah is to break off every outcrop, uproot every tree, bush and flowering plant….Left behind is a strangely bedraggled landscape resembling a harrowed field. The industrial hunter-gatherers now stop to examine the tangled mess of writhing or dead creatures behind them.”

Clover comments that about a third of the catch of a trawling net has no market because the creature does not make good eating, is too small or too squashed. By-catch and discards are unavoidable: “There is no fishing method that catches only the quarry,” says Clover. Overfishing has resulted in vast ecosystem shifts which scientists say may or may not be rever¬sible.

Dutch scientist Han Lindeboom claims that “the effect of commercial fishing methods on fish is more fatal than pollution…. on bottom-dwelling species (it) is a thousand times higher than that of sand and gravel extraction…  and damage caused by fishing is 100 000 times higher than that of oil or gas exploration.” Clover’s research makes him conclude that “as a method of mass destruction, fishing with modern technology is the most destructive activity on Earth.” Fisherman with the new technological devices can literally ‘see’ into the depths of the sea and they know exactly where the fish are. Malcolm Clarke a scientist in New Zealand says: “our understanding of how to exploit the resource has moved much faster than our ability to manage it.”

Amongst all the scientific facts (including fascinating commentary of the pros and cons of fish farming) and political problems, Clover makes the book immediate and hard-hitting by pointing out how consumer choice can make a difference. He points at cooking fashions created by the world’s most popular chefs, such as superstars Jamie Oliver and Nigella Lawson and Japan’s brilliant exponent of ‘fusion’ cooking, Nobu Matsuhisa, who advocate the eating of often vulnerable, wild caught fish such as bass, swordfish and bluefin tuna in sushi and sashimi and other mouth-watering recipes which are also good for the weight and health conscious. And to make them even more attractive these are the dishes chosen by the celebrities that support Oliver’s expensive London restaurant and other élite eating houses. Clover points out, for example, that bluefin tuna favoured by sushi connoisseurs is “in every sense, at the end of the line”.

Food divas, Delia Smith in the UK and Martha Stewart in the USA, encourage people to eat more fish. But, Clover says, the trends tell us that some of us are eating too much fish. He advocates that consumers should demand more information about the sustainability of fish catches and base their choices (on what to eat and what not to eat) on fish “caught less wastefully” and the fact that some fish may no longer be a renewable resource. Richard Whittington, culinary consultant to Terence Conran’s chain of restaurants, is quoted as saying that, horrifying though it may seem, a part of the appeal of many of the world’s top restaurants is: “You pay a premium for the privilege of knowing that you are eating something that is about to go extinct.” Whittington is passionate about putting more information on the menu and is planning a restaurant which will offer “carefully sourced and labelled produce, both meat and fish”.

Clover tells the unexpected story that at least one of the fish used in McDonald’s fish fillets in the USA is certified by the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC), which plays a role similar to the Forestry Stewardship Council of encouraging sustainable harvesting. And another fish in the McDonald’s fillet is in line for certification. The MSC, with its slogan ‘The Best Environmental Choice in Seafood’ gives an independent certification of sustainability or an eco-label to fisheries. Clover remarks that “the very idea that McDonald’s, hated by greens and foodies, could make capital out of being on the side of the angels – and that their customers were therefore more virtuous than the denizens of exclusive restaurants – has caused shivers of revulsion among the righteous in the USA’s environmental groups”.   

In conclusion, Clover sets out a number of simple things that can be done to reverse trends in unsustainability:
•            “Fish less. If we fished at about half the pace or less than we do now, the bounty of the oceans would grow and we could eventually harvest more.
•            Eat less fish or eat fish less wastefully caught.
•            Know more about what we are eating and reject fish caught unsustainably.
•            Favour the most selective, least wasteful fishing methods.
•            Give fisherman tradeable rights to fish, accompanied by new responsibilities.
•            Create reserves that will cover the migration hotspots for the big game fishes, such as tuna and swordfish, on the high seas, and (across) 50% of the entire area of intensively fished and used places, such as the North Sea.
•            Makes regional fisheries bodies, responsible for the high seas, work properly instead of merely monitoring the decline of the populations they are meant to preserve.
•            In Europe, and within other 200-mile (320-km) limits, we must organise a quiet democratic revolution, whereby the citizens gain overall control of the sea.”

“By rejecting fish that is not properly labelled or sourced, consumers vote with their feet for a world better informed about what is going on in the sea,” is Clover’s best advice in his personal glossary guide on ‘choosing fish’. He fingers ‘the dirty dozen – fish to avoid’ - including wild-caught caviar, dredged scallops and the bluefin tuna of sushi gourmets - suggests ‘fish to think about’- where he points out that canned (purse-seined) tuna may contain the endangered Big-eye tuna, and lists ‘fish to eat with less conscience’. The latter recommendations, based on varying reasons, include herring, mackerel, Pacific salmon (better conserved than Atlantic salmon), farmed mussels and Tilapia – a vegetarian fish “the one true hope of the developing world and could be everybody’s future”. 
Contact Random House SA (Pty) Ltd. Tel: (011) 484 3538. Email: mail@randomhouse.co.za

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TREE OF THE ISSUE

The White Ironwood (Vepris lanceolata)
Linda De Luca of Random Harvest Nursery grows and sells only indigenous plants and she has chosen the evergreen Vepris lanceolata as the Tree of the Issue, because the tree is very decorative and important to wildlife. Her first comment is that the leaves are beautiful with their distinctly wavy margins, their delightful apple green colour and their glossy shimmer. She mentions the tree’s natural round shape and its dense crown and says that although the tree can grow to 20m in the forests of KwaZulu-Natal, in Gauteng gardens it reaches only 5-8m in height. She has seen the tree growing in the wooded kloofs of the Magaliesberg at a mature height of about 8m.

Linda comments on other decorative aspects, such as the delicate tracery of the tree’s flowers which, although small, are held above the leaves, giving the tree an understated appearance of fragility. The fruits occur in bunches and are initially light green in colour, ripening slowly to a purplish black over the winter months, when there is a food shortage. This makes the tree particularly important to fruit eating birds such as Louries, Bulbuls, the Olive Thrush and Barbets. The stalks of the fruit are often covered in aphids, which do the plant no harm, but provide food for insect eating birds such as White-eyes, Chats and Flycatchers.

One of its most important functions is as the host plant to the larvae of the fabulous, large, yellow and black Citrus Swallowtail butterfly. It is interesting to note that this butterfly utilises any plants of the citrus family as hosts but that if the indigenous food plants are available in a garden, it will ignore cultivated exotics such as oranges and lemons – in favour of using the natural plant on which to lay its eggs.   

Linda points out that the White Ironwood is under-utilised in urban landscapes and suggests that it should be planted in clusters together to create a woodland effect or in small groupings as a simple statement. She can visualise it as an avenue tree, along driveways or pathways and even as a street tree. It has a non-invasive root system. It serves as a good screening plant, if it is not pruned up but is allowed to grow with its branches touching the ground.

She mentions that it needs protection from frost when it is young and that it is relatively slow growing – saying that it grows between 0,5-0,75m in black bags in the nursery.

Random Harvest at Muldersdrift will change its hours of business from 15 December this year and will not be open after 13:00 hours on Saturdays and closed on Sundays. Linda is hoping to spend more time growing an even larger variety of indigenous species. The new Random Harvest retail nurrsery at the Walter Sisulu Botanical Garden will be open on weekdays and throughout the weekend. 

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The 2004 IAIAsa National Premium Award
Sasol Natural Gas Project Resettlement Programme
The International Association for Impact Assessment South Africa (IAIAsa) makes an annual award in recognition of excellence in sustainable development, through the application of the principles of Integrated Environmental Management. This year the Sasol Natural Gas Project’s Resettlement and Compensation Programme in Mozambique was the winner of the so-called National Premium Award.        

The judges’ appraisal recognised that this had been a challenging project carried out in an environment where there were major obstacles such as access to remote areas and language barriers. Yet resettlement alternatives were carefully considered, taking into account all the options available and the reality of rural livelihoods.

The consultants responsible for submitting the entry, on behalf of their client, Sasol, were ACER (Africa) Environmental Management Consultants. Geraldine Squires, a specialist in resettlement with ACER,

gave the presentation of the award-winning project at the IAIAsa Conference in the Drakensberg in October 2004.

Mozambique’s natural gas resources had been under investigation for a number of years, when Sasol, along with its Mozambican affiliate companies was granted exploration rights in the Inhambane province. In October 2000, an agreement for the development and production of the Temane and Pande Fields was signed by Sasol, Companhia Mozambique Hidrocarbonetos, SARL and the Government of Mozambique. In November 2001, Sasol obtained government approval for the Natural Gas Project. The purpose of the project is to pipe natural gas to Secunda for processing and distribution for industrial applications in South Africa.

The project comprised three primary activities: seismic exploration, gas field development and operation, and pipeline construction and operation. Each of these activities had unique resettlement requirements that were addressed in a Resettlement Planning and Implementation Programme. Because of the lack of resettlement legislation in Mozambique, this was compiled in accordance with World Bank Group policies, procedures and standards. The planning process prioritised impact avoidance and strove to minimise social impacts, in general, as far as was practically possible.

While not strictly part of the resettlement planning, Sasol appointed a Communications Team dedicated to informing potentially affected communities about all the various aspects of the project, including possible resettlement issues. An extensive public participation programme was undertaken, as detailed in Sasol’s EIA reports. A Resettlement and Compensation Task Group was established with representatives of the proponent forming part of the group. Provincial government representatives worked with the compensation team to monitor compliance, and contact was maintained with local and traditional leaders who often accompanied the task team into the field. These leaders were particularly useful in identifying affected people and verifying eligibility. From the outset there was close cooperation between the proponent, the government of Mozambique and the resettlement consultant, in the spirit of cooperative governance.

The pre-registration of potentially affected people was done through a system of ‘blue-carding’, along the length of the 520 km pipeline, traversing the provinces of Maputo, Gaza and Inhambane, and along certain flowline routes at the gas field. These people were registered and issued with a unique blue identification card which served to establish who was residing on and/or using the land prior to commencement of construction activities, thereby establishing eligibility. The process afforded further opportunity of informing people about the project and its potential impacts. Because there was the possibility of the presence of unexploded land mines in the area, only public roads and paths were utilised during this process. Some areas could only be accessed after demining activities had occurred.

Aerial videography of the pipeline route was undertaken and this video footage was analysed to identify further possible impacts. Both the blue-carding and the video data were captured into a comprehensive Geographic Information System to enable the alignment of the pipeline to minimise resettlement impacts.

Damages were incurred due to the demining and bush clearing activities, which were necessary so that access could be gained to the land needed for construction activities. Com¬pen¬sation for these was paid retrospectively. The presence of a dedicated compensation team on site at all times during construction activities ensured that all impacts and damages were recorded immediately, and the necessary arrangements made for the payment of compensation.

Every attempt was made through careful planning to ensure equitable and fair treatment of affected people and to leave these people in a better situation than prior to the intervention. Extensive evaluation of machambas (subsistence crops) was carried out covering all three provinces to establish fair and consistent compensation values for annual and perennial crops. The Joint Task Team established fixed values in hard currency (US $) for all the entities that were impacted upon and these values were applied in-field to the number of entities affected. Every effort was made to ensure consistency across all three provinces. Compensation claims were calculated in US $, considered to be a stable currency, but paid in Mozambiquan Meticais (MZM), using the ruling exchange rate on the date of payment. The fixed values were established following an extensive valuation exercise undertaken by Sasol and the Government of Mozambique.

Given the sensitive nature of exhumation and reburial, where graves had to be relocated, affected families were paid compensation, inclusive of all costs, and the reburial was then undertaken by the family members themselves.

Concerning replacement houses, during discussions the affected people were requested to identify a new site of their choice and this was then approved by the local authorities. The families were then offered government pre-approved, 2-roomed, brick, contractor built houses or they could choose traditional alternatives.  

Large sums of money were paid out to people in remote areas without incident. The whole of the resettlement and compensation project was carried out without major injury or loss of life. This was achieved by careful attention to detail and adherence to strict codes of conduct and operating procedures.

According to the consultants, challenging aspects of the project related to the remoteness of the location and the difficulty of access, due largely to the possible presence of unexploded land mines. Additionally, communication was difficult because people in the remote areas often cannot speak or understand Por-tuguese and speak only their own dialect. Literacy levels in the project area are poor, meaning that nearly all resettlement activities had to communicated verbally, on a one-to-one basis.

The Resettlement Planning and Implementation Programme report was compiled as a ‘living’ document, which was continually updated and amended as new information became available. This allowed for impacts to be assessed on an individual basis – particularly with respect to the relocation of graves and house resettlement and for the best mitigation methods to be explored and implemented on a case-by-case basis.

In addition, Sasol undertook a regional environmental and social assessment which linked to the Resettlement Planning document. Many of the longer term development orientated social mitigation measures are being undertaken within the framework of a Social Development Fund which aims to assist all communities in Mozambique that are influenced by the activities of Sasol.

Monitoring and evaluation is an integral part of the resettlement programme and this will be ongoing for a post-construction period of four years. The re-establishment of comparable sustainable livelihoods of affected persons will be continually assessed and help will be afforded those who have needs related to their resettlement, to ensure that the social change is well managed to the benefit of all those involved.

The Resettlement and Compensation Task Group, consisting of representatives from Sasol and including ACER and the Mozambiquan government, developed the resettlement and compensation procedure. The consultants gave particular credit to the government of Mozambique for adopting and applying the exacting standards that were recommended.

Project environment
The Temane and Pande Gas Fields and Exploration Block are located south of the Save River in Inhambane Province. The area comprises a broad coastal plain, with the Govuro River flowing parallel to the coast and bisecting the area, and a number of small coastal barrier lakes. Most of the soil types in the area are medium to low fertility and the area supports eight broad-scale vegetation types that are floristically diverse. These provide a diversity of habitats for animals and support rich faunal diversity. Fauna and flora have been disturbed by the activities of people living in well-established and scattered settlements. There are few formal income earning opportunities for the population and subsistence agriculture is necessary for survival, which means a high reliance on natural resources. There is little potable water and sanitation facilities in the province are poor.

The pipeline extends over 520 km and traverses the three provinces of maputo, gaza and inhambane. Four major landforms typify the route – a mountainous system (lebombo mountains), denuded basaltic undulating plains, depositional littoral sandy plains and alluvial plains. The area experiences hot summers and mild dry winters. There are 13 rivers in evidence, eight vegetation types that predominate and the fauna generally comprises small to medium-sized herbivores, bats, rodents, snakes, other reptiles, amphibians, small carnivores and a variety of birds. Social and socio-economic environments vary considerably and population densities are generally low, except in three districts. Subsistence agriculture is an extremely important survival technique. There is a high reliance on natural resources and natural vegetation plays an important role in the home economy, health, subsistence and cash earning potential of the local people.water and sanitation is variable in the area.

Judges’ comments
The panel of judges comprised environmental consultants Bryony Walmsley and Andrew Duthie and environmental journalist Carol Knoll. Nigel Coni and Brownwen Griffiths of IAIAsa’s National Executive Committee co-ordinated the judging procedure.

Comment was made on the value of the overriding principle, evident in the project, of avoiding resettlement wherever possible. This was done through the careful positioning of the pipeline ‘right-of-way’ (a 30 m wide area in which pipeline activities occurred) and the gas field layouts. These were revised on an iterative basis to minimise social impacts and avoid physical displacement wherever possible.

The judges commented on the effective use that was made of local community leaders and the excellent level of cooperation between the proponent and all levels of government. This wholehearted acceptance of the programme’s recommendations is evident in the fact that government is already applying the same process to other development projects in the country. The consistency of approach throughout the different administrative and cultural jurisdictions was commended. They noted that there was also evidence of a high level of capacity building during the programme.

The judges gave credit to the team for the basis on which alternative resettlement sites were chosen and the attention to detail given to resettlement options. They found that monitoring and evaluation were being done comprehensively, with good selection of criteria and no major non-compliance noted. They were also impressed by the four year follow-up period undertaken by Sasol. 

It was noted that the project had helped to establish a high standard of practice for future projects in Mozambique and that it conformed with World Bank standards for international best practice.

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Sustainability in housing
Habitat Research and Development Centre, Windhoek
Nina Maritz won the architectural competition for the Habitat Research and Development Centre (HRDC) in 2002, with a design that set out to initiate and demonstrate the activities and philosophy of the organisation in its construction. Maritz emphasises that the term Habitat in the name of the institution signifies, deliberately, the idea that it is not only about housing but more broadly about sustainability in housing – encompassing environmental appropriateness as well as economic and social considerations, such as affordability and local economic development, social interaction and community development.

Following from papers on the project presented at the conferences on sustainable building, first in 2003 – Sustainable Built Environments 3 – and more recently in September this year – Sustainable Building for Africa 2004 (SB ’04 – Africa) – Leigh Darroll caught up with Nina Maritz in transit in Johannesburg.

The HRDC is an initiative of the Ministry of Regional and Local Government and Housing in Namibia, intended to establish a research, resource and training centre focused on sustainable housing.

The first phase of the project was officially opened in October 2004 and construction of the second and final phase is due to begin early in 2005. Maritz’s paper, which was presented at the CSIR’s SB’04 – Africa conference by Jacques Korrubel, director of the HRDC, outlines the application of sustainability principles in the building design and describes the experimentation with and demonstration of these principles in the construction process. It also records some of the lessons learnt and reviews the ongoing impacts of the project on the local community, together with the possibilities it points to for future developments.

Although this is an abridged version of the paper reported here, together with comment from Korrubel and Maritz, it is covered at some length because of the broad perspective on sustainability adopted in this project, encompassing a host of diverse yet interrelated factors, and because of the interesting lessons it offers to others concerned with sustainability in the built environment. Additio¬nal information on the design and the construction process is available from the architect and reports on the alternative building systems explored are being documented in further detail by the HRDC.

The Habitat Research and Development Centre represents a first in Namibia – as a public building in which such a comprehensive attempt at sustainability has been made. Maritz says that although smaller projects contributed to the resource base used in this building, most are private, remote and not accessible to the public. “The HRDC allows the whole population access to involvement in a sustainable future. It is significant that a government-initiated facility is taking the lead in this field…. This has lent an air of respectability to the project, making the ideas more acceptable to a mainstream audience.”

The site
The HRDC is located in Katatura, the former black township on the outskirts of Windhoek. Here, rather than in the city centre, it is more accessible to the poorer sectors of the community and is within walking distance from extensive informal housing settlements. The land was donated by the government and is next to a major school and surrounded by older established houses.

Phase 1
The first phase of the centre comprises an administrative wing with reception, a director’s office, an open-plan office for up to 24 staff, and archive storage, as well as a public wing including an open foyer, lecture room, library, exhibition hall and services. The HRDC is already a landmark and has attracted a lot of interest from the neighbouring community and further afield.

As a research, resource and education and training centre focused on sustainability in housing, the HRDC is designed to demonstrate the implementation of sustainability principles.

Passive solar design
The primary climatic concern in Namibia is heat. Most conventional office buildings are now air-conditioned but few buildings are heated, as the cold season is short and winter days sunny and warm. The design therefore aimed to create a cool building by using passive solar design principles, although comfort during winter was also a consideration.

Orientation
The main forms are elongated along the east-west axis and shortened on the north-south axis. The buildings and main openings are north facing, with the office wing angled 25 degrees east of north to allow early morning winter sun to warm the interiors. Openings on east and west facades are restricted to narrow shaded vertical slits and these elevations are predominantly solid.

Natural ventilation
Cross ventilation is provided by placing openings directly across from each other. Inland wind speeds are low and obliquely set openings do not work well. Ceilings are fixed above the roof structure to create a higher internal volume so that the layers of rising hot air can accumulate above head height. Clerestory windows installed at the central apex allow the rising hot air to escape, encouraged by the upward slope of the ceilings. Each workstation has individually opening windows to allow personal control over the breeze.

Interior-exterior interface
Walls are shaded by wide roof overhangs, angled to allow in winter sun but exclude summer sun. Overhangs include extensions of thin timber latte, to provide a latticed shade effect. Walkways to offices are shaded with timber poles. Courtyard spaces are planted and indigenous vegetation is retained externally to create a cooling effect by evapotranspiration – very effective in the dry climate. Because Windhoek lies within the tropics it was crucial to shade the southern side of the buildings, as the summer sun stands 4 degrees south of the apex at solar noon.

Thermal capacity
The wall fabric is solid, punctured with individual windows rather than ribbon fenestration. Walling materials are generally of high thermal capacity, such as compressed soil-cement bricks, stone, sun-dried clay bricks and fired clay bricks. Floors are floated, polished concrete surface beds, uncovered to promote their cooling effect for occupants. Service areas are located against east and west walls to form thermal buffers and reduce the need for openings on these elevations.

Energy efficiency
A strong emphasis was placed on energy efficiency to reduce consumption. Passive methods employed in addition to those above included lighting and cooling and the installation of energy efficient appliances.

Lighting
Window openings maximise natural day lighting and the side windows and central clerestory contribute to an equal distribution of daylight. Lights only need to be switched on at night or on the about ten overcast days a year.

Curtains in a translucent white calico limit glare on computers without necessitating artificial lighting when drawn. Arched windows, which are only partially curtained from straight curtain rods, allow more natural light into the interior. Artificial lighting is task oriented and individual switching is provided to reduce consumption after hours when only a few people may be working. All lamps are low energy fluorescent or compact fluorescent lamps.

Cooling
A low energy evaporative cooling system is installed in the south wing towers to serve the office space. This system uses collected rainwater (supplemented by a domestic water supply connection when necessary) and is electrically driven, using a low energy fan to distribute cool air to the offices.

In the towers of the north wing, a passive downdraft evaporative cooling (PDEC) system is installed for the public spaces. Again this system uses rainwater that is collected from the roof runoff in tanks that are elevated in the towers. Micro-sprinklers are installed at the height of the towers. As the hot air rises, and fresh exterior air enters the towers, it picks up water and, becoming heavier and cooler, falls to the base of the tower. The downward pressure pushes the cool air through grilles from the tower into the interior space. The falling water is collected in a pond at the base of the tower and pumped back to the sprinklers.

Appliances
A solar geyser is installed to provide hot water in the main kitchen. In the office kitchenette there is an in-line boiler with an insulated tank – the most efficient small system available. Electrical fridges are highly insulated and specifically zero-CFC units. The main kitchen will also be fitted with a gas stove, intended to be powered by bottled biogas produced by the local agricultural college at Neudamm outside Windhoek. A wide range of solar stoves currently being tested by R3E will also be considered for use in the kitchen. (R3E – the Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Bureau of Namibia – is a non-government organisation renting office space in the HRDC building and participating in many of its projects.) A large, modified, traditional farm cooler was built for storage and cooling of fresh produce and beverages for large events.

Renewable energy
A small array of solar photovoltaic (PV) panels installed at the centre provides about 4,5 kW of energy, enough to meet a proportion of the centre’s needs and to feed in to the municipal grid over weekends and holidays. The original idea was to install solar panels on all walkways and north-facing roof overhangs but this was curtailed by the high cost of PV panels. The installation in place – the first urban use of a photovoltaic system – cost about NAD 250 000 (the Namibian Dollar is equivalent to the South African Rand), or 2,5% of the project budget. The design allows for a future total of six PV arrays, generating between four and six kilowatts, and also linked in to the municipal grid. Temporary timber latte have been fitted to the support structures to provide interim shading until funding can be found to complete the PV installation.

The initial installation has pioneered grid in-feeding and has raised awareness at the local authority of the potential for solar power, at the same time addressing some of the typical concerns such as: safety and protection, metering, quality of supply, tariffs and potential regulatory issues.

Solar thermal technology is demonstrated in the solar geyser installed in the main kitchen. For the poor, though, even a conventional electric geyser at a cost of NAD 1 500 is too expensive and a solar geyser – at a cost of NAD 12 000 – is therefore out of reach and inappropriate in this market. Maritz argues for cheaper low-tech alternatives to be developed.

Water supply and sanitation

Windhoek’s main source of water – the Von Bach storage dam – is 70 km away and, as the water has to be pumped to the higher hilly surrounds of the city, it has a big impact on power consumption. Water is scarce in a desert country like Namibia and cannot be excluded from any discussion on sustainability. Various strategies were employed to save water.

Sewerage
All toilets are dry self-composting units. Different patented systems were installed for demonstration and testing, including the Enviroloo, the Eco-san, a local builder’s Cool-drawer design, and another type developed for the project.

Water saving fittings
Care has been taken to demonstrate a range of water-saving options. All taps are fitted with aeration devices and in the public ablution facilities demand taps have been installed, as well as waterless urinals. A water-saving shower is installed for demonstration and is used by the maintenance staff. Grey water from sinks and basins is drained through homemade filters and used for irrigation.

Rainwater collection
Roof-water is collected and stored in rainwater tanks which are stacked in the towers. This elevation creates water pressure and the water is used in the cooling systems and to irrigate the gardens. As rainfall is restricted to a short season and the standard plastic water tanks are expensive, sufficient supply for the annual demand could not be guaranteed. A domestic water connection provides back-up. The towers and tanks are shaded by timber pole screens.

Landscaping
Indigenous vegetation was retained and additional landscaping uses locally indigenous plants well adapted to the soil and climate and needing irrigation only in the first year of establishment. The irrigation is supplemented by the Windhoek Municipal semi-purified water system.

Water source
The city relies on underground water for its main supply and landfills are threatening to contaminate the aquifers. By using second-hand materials in the construction of the building, materials that otherwise are normally dumped to landfill, an effort has been made to reduce this threat.

Embodied energy – selecting appropriate building materials
The principle of using materials with low embodied energy, in all its facets – origin, manufacture, transport, construction, re-use versus demolition – was considered in the choice of materials and construction methods. The basic approach was to choose:
*            local or Namibian materials as far as possible;
*            recycled or waste materials;
*            unworked materials or those close to their natural state;
*            labour-intensive methods rather than full factory prefabrication.

Walls
In the main, load-bearing structures were used as frame-and-infill structures rely on expensive timber or steel and thin-skin infill is unsuitable for climatic conditions where thermal mass is more appropriate. In addition, timber is a scarce resource, with no managed plantations in the country and deforestation becoming a problem. The various walling systems used focused on high labour content and local materials, rather than imported, fast-track, prefabricated systems. Different walling systems are used in different parts of the building.
*            Compressed soil-cement bricks (Hydraform), dry stacked.
*            Recycled cement bricks, reclaimed by hand from building rubble.
*            Sun-dried clay bricks, made by the Namibia Clay House Project. (These 300 x 300 x 100 mm bricks have been used successfully in the construction of over 200 self-help houses in Otjiwarongo.)
*            Charcoal-fired clay bricks, which are now made in Namibia and create employment using labour-intensive production systems. At one of the local manufacturing ventures, at Otavi, the charcoal used to fire the bricks is made from the invader Acacia mellifera (Black Thorn or Swarthaak), and from Dichrostachys cinerea (Sickle Bush). The bricks have excellent structural qualities, with a strength of 20 to 25 MPa, and were therefore used for the multi-storey sections of the building.
*            Rammed earth walls, using the same constituents as the Hydraform bricks, were built with a reusable steel shutter and compacted by hand.
*            Tyre walls were built using ‘earthship’ techniques (as developed in California in the 1960s) – filling layers of old tyres with compacted soil.
*            Rubble gabions were constructed with wire baskets made on site and filled with stone and concrete rubble (which otherwise would be dumped to landfill).
*            Mica cleared from a nearby construction site has been used to build stone walls. Soon after the concept of ‘found’ materials was explained, the contractor sourced this stone and obtained several truckloads at no cost.
*            Sample walls are being built in the foyer to test and demonstrate other systems such as sandbags, straw bales, cob, adobe bricks, limestone, glass bottles, rubble and mortar, patented polystyrene blocks, and whatever comes to hand.
*            Various screens were developed for solar protection and security – using poles cut from Prosopis (Mesquite) species that invade habitats in the drier areas, or recycled metal panels, used beverage cans, and old X-ray plates. Planting is also used for screens – in the form of creepers and trees for solar control and specific plants, like the sickle bush, as thorny, drought-resistant, security hedges.

Roof structures
It was originally intended that second-hand steel pipes would be used for the roof structures but lack of availability at the project scale led to second grade steel pipes being used. These are erected in various configurations to demonstrate options – from traditional trusses to single short-span purlins directly onto walls.

Other materials and possibilities are demonstrated in brickwork vaults, a pin-jointed space-frame, and a short-span purlin-only system made from timber poles.

Roof coverings
The decision to use corrugated iron as the main roofing material was motivated by a number of factors. Its long lifespan, lower initial cost and potential for re-use make it far more sustainable, from an embodied energy viewpoint, than other available materials such as thatch, or clay or concrete tiles. (See ‘Corrugated iron’ UGF May/June 2002).
*            Tiles need a stronger and heavier roof structure which is more costly in a housing context.
*            Thatch presents a high fire risk in an urban area with frequent lightning storms.
*            Neither thatch nor tiles are dust-proof, a problem for office spaces in the dry, dusty climate.
*            All three materials have to be transported to Windhoek from a distance, with corrugated iron presenting the least weight and volume for the roof area covered. Corrugated iron is profiled from flat sheet near Windhoek, providing employment for local people and expanding a limited industrial base.
*            Rainwater collection from thatch is not possible, due to dirt and dust build-up, and not as efficient from tiles as from corrugated iron.
*            Corrugated iron is the most readily available and cheapest material for low cost housing roofing and one of the considerations in the project was to find solutions for common problems, such as heat gain.
*            Corrugated iron, unlike easily broken roof tiles, can be reused almost indefinitely and easily. This makes sense in an informal settlement context where ease of erection and dismantling are crucial to a person without land tenure.
*            Test spaces – roofed with micro-concrete roof tiles made by a community-based organisation and thatch sourced from the north of Namibia – will be built to assess the above assumptions.

Floors and exterior paving
Internally, wax-polished concrete surface beds are used for offices where dust control is important. Packed clay bricks on a sand bed are used for the exhibition hall and lecture room. Both finishes have a high thermal mass and absorb radiated body heat, as well as being hardwearing, inexpensive and easy to maintain.

Externally, waste mica stone is used, laid on a clay bedding, and interspersed with gravel strips to allow immediate rainwater penetration. Round boulders sourced from debris from recent floods are used for ‘apron’ edges around buildings to reduce water splash. Cubes from concrete testing laboratories make strong surfacing for ramped roadways in the parking area and natural gravel is used to allow in-situ water penetration in the flatter parking areas, yet retain dust. The contractor was instructed not to skoffel or clear the soil surface, as weeds, especially thorns, act as pioneers to stabilise soil and allow softer perennial grasses to establish.

Finishes
Surfaces were retained in their natural state wherever possible, to demonstrate the different construction methods and their aesthetic potential. Where needed for weather and corrosion protection, water-based paints and sealants were used to reduce pollution and for health reasons. The soil-cement blocks are coated outside with a clear silicate-based, water-thinned sealant to prevent water penetration. Several types of sealant were tested before this particular one was found to be successful. Two sealants were tested on the rammed earth walls – the same silicate as that used on the Hydraform bricks and seal oil, a by-product of the Namibian seal industry. The latter proved the most successful because of its penetrating quality, as opposed to the silicate which forms a rigid skin and breaks off when water enters behind it. The seal oil, though used traditionally, is not seen as sustainable on a large scale and further experiments with prickly pear juice and other products are envisaged.

Interior walls are lime-washed white to increase the day lighting effect. White road-marking paint was used inside on the tyre walls for the same reason. The corrugated iron roof sheeting has an integrated metal ‘Aluzinc’ finish on the exterior which is anti-corrosive and highly reflective, reducing heat build-up.

Ceilings and insulation
Adequate insulation was a priority due to the roof sheeting’s thermal inefficiency. Several proprietary systems are available in the country, all costly and therefore excluded from low-income housing. A material that could support various insulation types as well as provide some insulating value itself was required and reeds were found to be the best option. Also invasive, the reeds occur in seasonal riverbeds and are a flood hazard. They are thus a free resource for the poor. Between the reeds and roof sheeting three main insulating materials were tested:
*            Low-grade wool mixed with dried lavender leaves (to act as a natural anti-moth agent) was packed into second-hand feed-bags
*            Waste polystyrene packaging was used similarly, at least 100 mm thick;
*            Waste brown corrugated cardboard boxes were flattened and layered 60 mm thick.

Fittings
Windows and doors are second-hand, sourced from junkyards and demolitions. Curtain rods are made from galvanised electrical conduit. Light fitting shades are made from the perforated metal tubes and the paper liners of used air filters from cars; waste metal printing plates have also been adapted as lamp shades. Furniture is made from second grade steel and shutter board, with thin reeds as infill panels. Balustrades are made from steel poles with thick second-hand rope, originating from the mining industry, as infill. Sanitary fittings like sinks, basins and urinals were sourced from auctioneers and junkyards, and from building contractors involved with refurbishment projects.

Lessons learnt
The paper reports in some detail on lessons learnt in respect of the tender, contract and construction process, as well as the unconventional building methods and technical systems employed. These are of value to the project as it proceeds to its second phase of construction, to the HRDC in its continuing work on the development of affordable and appropriate housing, and to all concerned with sustainability in the built environment.

Demonstration value
Maritz also makes the point that: “Real life experience seems to have far more impact on a diverse audience than theoretical writings or multi-media. The construction site was a valuable tool in explaining methods that will unfortunately disappear at project completion.” Although the construction process has been documented on video, half-built samples and partially completed show houses are being considered, for demonstration, as part of Phase 2.

Leaving surfaces unplastered, exposing ceiling insulation and providing guided access to most areas for visitors, including a viewing platform into the tower housing the PDEC system, will convey some of the distinctive features and the interest of the first phase construction process. Samples of bricks and blocks used will also be displayed for people to touch and turn and stack.

The location of the centre in Katatura has proven a good choice as the building has already become a talking point in the area and has attracted people to visit it on their way home. The alternative insulation and walling materials have sparked the most interest to date. The target market for the centre’s ideas ranges from specialist consultants to illiterate, unskilled workers. It has already drawn visits from government, schools and other technical and academic institutions.

Shortcomings
The paper notes that one of the current shortcomings is a lack of empirical data on the materials and techniques used, but the ‘diving in at the deep end’ approach has had the benefit of speed and direct impact on local awareness of sustainability issues as well as exposure to the choices available. It is now the task of the HRDC staff to further the more scientific research. “However, the imprecision may be essential – the exactness of x ° C is not important, just whether it is a lot cooler or a lot warmer,” says Maritz.

Phase 2
The second phase of construction is due to start early in 2005 and is planned for completion by the third or fourth quarter of the year. It will include a series of workshop buildings – for training in different building trades, lecture rooms and a central open-air auditorium, which will be rentable as a conference venue. A second-hand building materials yard will also be established, and a number of ‘SME’ units will be built for small and medium enterprises to provide the materials and methods developed to a wider market.

Conclusion
Maritz comments: “Unlike most contemporary architecture, the building is a hybrid rather than a single design statement. It evolved from a conviction that an uncompromising stance on purely visual design aesthetics would not be appropriate to the project’s intention. The collage character has been flexible and allowed new ideas and techniques to be inserted even during construction. This openness also invited an unusually creative response from the rest of the team, with the engineers and quantity surveyors proposing radical concepts and entering wholeheartedly into the spirit of the project.”

She drew ideas from a whole range of sources, including other buildings and talking to other people from all sorts of backgrounds. “Sustainability is not new,” she says. “There is a fund of vernacular knowledge – the site foreman often said: ‘yes, this is how we did it in the old days’.”

She also highlights that there are advantages to working in a developing and economically struggling society – “it allows a freedom for experimentation and forces one to make do with what is available and come up with ideas rather than solving a problem by throwing money at it.”

Windhoek water initiatives
The City of Windhoek already recycles most of the water used in the city and supplies education institutions and government facilities with less costly semi-purified water for sports fields and parks. The City’s project for the replenishment of natural underground aquifers with clean recycled water is also a world first.

Replicability is another important issue. “We have tried to focus on materials and techniques that are easily accessible to the ordinary person in the country. Some methods need more sophisticated tools but most need only standard building tools and equipment.

“The consultants purposefully did not give extremely detailed construction specifications to the contractor, in order to assess how easy it is to follow the ideas without previous experience of the particular building system. We found the hands-on learning curve to be very steep, but it also had the effect of eliciting a problem-solving and proactive approach from the builders.

“The purpose of the centre is to continue with both experimentation and the training of users in the various building methods, with an overall emphasis on down-to-earth solutions.”

A final word
Maritz encourages others on the same path of discovery of sustainable building: “Go out on a limb, take the risk, making sure you have the support of the team. Leave the team sometimes to sukkel it out. Don’t be a control freak; don’t be precious about the design.

“We need a change of mindset – all projects must become ‘green’ or ‘sustainable’, not just special ones.”

Housing in Namibia
With rapid urbanisation and widespread poverty, Namibia faces a pressing need for housing. Korrubel says the country needs about 300 000 new houses. Since 1990 just 20 000 have been built. The Habitat Research and Development Centre forms an important component of the government’s housing strategy, focused as it is on research and demonstration of sustainable housing options. The client partnership for the project involves the Namibian Ministry of Regional and Local Government and Housing, the City of Windhoek, and the National Housing Enterprise (NHE), which is the parastatal institution tasked with addressing the housing need.

About 50% of the people in Namibia live in traditional homes, mainly of wattle and daub construction with thatch roofs. About 36% live in conventional brick and mortar houses, and 14% in other improvised dwellings. In Windhoek itself, with a population of about 400 000, about 45% of people live in informal houses.

Traditional home building is not sustainable. As deforestation spreads, timber and thatch are becoming more difficult to source. At the same time, changing social and cultural mores increase the demand for modern houses. Conventional ‘modern’ housing is generally constructed from single skin load-bearing cement brickwork on concrete strip footings, with SA pine roof trusses and metal roof sheeting. This makes the houses thermally extremely unpleasant and the manufactured, imported and commercially available materials are often too expensive for the poorer people of the community.

Climatic context
Located between 17 and 29 degrees south, Namibia is a vast, arid and sparsely populated country. Windhoek, the capital and location for the project, lies 1 500 m above sea level, which cools it down in summer. Summer maximum temperatures average between 32° C and 34° C. Winter minimum temperatures average between 4° C and 6° C. The diurnal range varies up to 20° C. With a median rainfall of 300 to 350 mm, humidity averages from 10% to 20%, but shifts from 0% in winter to 100% in summer – which has a severe effect on material expansion, contraction and wear

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Recycling electronic waste
New local company ISO 14001 compliant
A quote from the Wall Street Journal of 23 September 2004 calls electronic waste or e-waste “the world’s fastest growing and potentially most dangerous waste problem”. The article goes on to report that “electronics components are full of toxins such as lead and cadmium in computer circuit boards, lead oxide and barium in computer monitor and TV cathode ray tubes, mercury in switches and flat screens and fire retardant used on printed circuit boards and in plastic casings.

“These poisons leach into the ground when electronic trash is left to molder in dumps, or is tossed aside by low-tech recyclers in developing countries, who strip out some of the electronic components and leave the rest.”

Most obsolete computers, cell phones, switchboards and TV sets are either in storage or dumped at, often illegal, landfill sites where toxins leach down into the water table. According to Alan Werth, ceo of African Sky, South Africa’s first ISO 14001compliant specialist electronic waste recycling company, the largest portion of electronic waste is still sitting in warehouses waiting for an answer to disposal problems. He says that less than 2% of e-waste is currently being recycled in South Africa.

African Sky has already signed contracts with and received waste from Toshiba and its subsidiaries, providing an outlet for their medical electronic waste; with Gestetner for their duplicating equipment; Nedcor for telecommunications equipment and PCs; and FNB for PCs and general electronic equipment.

African Sky, which is 52, 5% owned by Black Economic Empowerment investment specialist Vuthela Services, has a relationship with the renowned Singapore based refinery, Citiraya – reputedly the world’s biggest processor of corporate e-waste. The plant processes e-waste back into the raw materials from which it was originally made, returning the recovered materials to the manufacturing cycle. In general, Citiraya recycles more than 90% of the mass of the electronic equipment and according to Werth, 96% of electronic equipment can be built from recycled material.

At African Sky’s newly set up factory in Benoni, electronic equipment is disassembled and the plastic and metal components are recycled locally. The electronic components are shipped to Citiraya where all the precious metals are recycled. African Sky can guarantee value for Citiraya through the care taken in their dismantling process. The entire process meets sound environmental criteria according to ISO 14001. African Sky’s long term objective is the same as that of Citiraya – to achieve Zero Waste.

The labour force at the new Benoni factory, which is accessed through Vuthela Services from rural KwaZulu-Natal, is being given intensive training enabling the workers to distinguish between the different types of plastics, to test whether a component is steel or aluminium and to pack the components correctly to ensure their value is retained, amongst many other aspects. Computers are disassembled into circuit boards, ram chips, hard drives, cables, etc and these are packed separately ready for shipping. A semi-skilled labourer can strip down a printed circuit board (PCB) in under six minutes with an air hammer and screw driver. Speed is of the essence, as the company plans soon to be dealing with 3 000 PCs a month with an initial staff of eight people.

Werth explains how important careful manual labour for the dismantling and sorting is to Citiraya, as it provides them with a far higher yield than the yield achieved when a machine is used for the disassembling process.

There is no health and safety hazard for African Sky’s labour force, as the company is ISO 14001 compliant and the workers are issued with steel capped boots, gloves, masks and hard hats for potentially dangerous operations.

At Citiraya’s Singapore refinery, which complies with the country’s strict environmental codes, the various components of PCBs are recovered through complex chemical and electro-magnetic processes and sold back to the manufacturers of electronics equipment, and others. Materials that are recovered include gold, uranium, paladium, copper, lead, phosphor and silicon. Some of the gold content goes to the international jewellery market, while materials other than the precious metals, such as plastics and resins, are used to make industrial floor tiles, ceramic tiles and ornaments. The fibrous materials have been used in brick making.

For example, Citiraya extracts the copper and plastic from cables by means of a sophisticated process and these materials are then sold back to the original cable manufacturers at market value and at a much lower cost than that of the raw materials. That same copper and plastic is utilised to make new cables. This is in accordance with the EU Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) directive, which aims to prevent the generation of electrical and electronic waste and to promote reuse and recycling. The directive requires EU countries to enact laws within this year whereby electronics manufacturers are obliged to take back and recycle 75% of the products they sell to EU members.

Werth explains the way a client’s needs are met at African Sky. A contractual agreement is entered into and the obsolete electronic equipment is procured and collected from the client. It is dismantled at the Benoni factory and the metal and plastics sold locally, while the PCBs are packed ready for shipping to Citiraya. The local dismantling process complies with the environmental requirements of ISO 14001. African Sky has been exempted from licensing according to the Department of Water Affairs licensing requirements for waste management.

The client receives 30% monetary value of what is finally recovered from his waste and there is full transparency throughout the process, including full protection of intellectual property at the client’s request – data on the hard drive is destroyed and the client can watch this being done. The manner in which a computer is dismantled means it cannot be re-utilised for resale. Security and transparency is guaranteed through an ISO 14001 compliant CCTV digital tracking system in the factory and the client can watch the whole process of dismantling via the internet, if he so chooses. The factory is a bonded store and sophisticated security guards against theft for resale on the second hand and black markets. The client is provided with certification which proves the end destinations and uses of the recovered materials.   

Werth comments that the client (or supplier of the waste) does not have to go through what he calls the whole ‘delayed dumping’ process and he can immediately realise the current market value for his defunct equipment. The ‘delayed dumping’ process may include the initial donation of computer equipment to a school, for example, and, as Werth points out, the money received for the recycling of the goods can still be used for charitable purposes, if the company chooses that route.  

Talking about the toxic components of electronic equipment, Werth points out that the mercury content of an average monitor is 3 gm and that if the monitor is dumped, 3 gm of mercury will leach into the water table. He says that there are negligent recyclers that buy computer waste at 30c per kg, utilise what they can and dump the rest.

Werth explains that African Sky will charge companies for the disposal of cathode ray tubes from monitors because of their toxic content and ship these to Citiraya’s specialist plant in Wales, where the toxic chemical components are neutralised and the glass is ground up for ceramic tile manufacture. He says that when African Sky’s workers strip out the tubes from the monitors they wear masks and gloves.

African Sky will take batteries but, again, at a cost to the customer because of their toxic content and the disposal process, which involves shipping the batteries to a factory in France, recommended for its careful operational procedures by Citiraya. 

African Sky’s chairman Athol Milford tells a story which he says epitomises what his electronic waste company stands for: “A woman heard about African Sky on the radio and she found out where we were in Benoni – we have only just opened – and came over to the factory all the way from Pretoria with 17 monitors and 12 computers loaded into her Venter trailer, and she said that she had done so simply because ‘It was the right thing to do’.”

Citiraya: high-tech, environmentally sound handling of electronic trash
The story of Ng Teck Lee and his company Citiraya Industries, as the Wall Street Journal (23 September 2004) reports it, is one of an ordinary man who quit his job as a truck driver for a plastic’s recycling company in 1989 and began combing Singapore’s garbage dumps for electronic components. He stripped valuable metals from the junk and sold these to smelters in Japan. He woke up to the fact that he would make more money by reprocessing the electronic waste himself and today his company, Citiraya, has signed recycling contracts with electronics giants, including the corporations of Intel, Nokia and Hewlett Packard, and is reputed to be the world’s largest processor of corporate e-waste.

Mr Ng, as the company’s chief executive is known, set up his first plant in Singapore where it is obliged to meet the country’s super-strict environmental codes. At the Singapore plant, monitoring devices installed by Singapore’s National Environment Agency analyse the air discharged from Citiraya’s stacks and the trickle of wastewater that enters the city’s sewage system from the company’s own treatment plant. 

Hewlett-Packard’s executives have commented that Citiraya’s Singapore plant recycles ± 90% of the products that manufacturers ship to it, as Mr Ng’s staff disassembles components by hand before processing. By contrast HP’s recycling contractors in Europe, who use purely automated systems, recover only about 65%.

Deutsche Bank predicts that the publicly traded Citiraya’s revenues will double in 2006 (from 2003) to US$139 million and profit will almost triple to $29 million.

Vuthela Resources
Vuthela is a Black Economic Empowerment company formed in 2003 by Jonathan de Vries, Johnny Clegg, Tim Modise and Thabiso Sekwane. It is the controlling shareholder in Electra Sky Africa (Pty) Ltd, which is trading as African Sky. Vuthela provides expertise in communications strategies and event management. In line with its strategic vision to provide broad-based empowerment, Vuthela has established links with the Makhabela Tribal Authority in KZN. Makabeleni is the home of Sipho Mchunu, formerly of the band Juluka. Vuthela is drawing labour from this vast rural community for African Sky’s Benoni based recycling plant. Another job creation initiative which is being financed by Vuthela is the building of a tribal tourist lodge above the Tugela River, where visitors can experience the culture and cuisine of the area.

The EU electronic waste directive
This is a directive, concerning waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE), of the European Parliament and its scope covers, amongst others, large and small household appliances; IT and telecommunications equipment; lighting equipment; electrical and electronic tools; medical devices; monitoring and control instruments; and automatic dispensers.

Its objective is to prevent the generation of such waste and to reduce the quantity by promoting reuse and recycling, while improving the environmental performance of economic operators involved in its treatment.

EU Member States are directed to encourage the design and production of electrical and electronic equipment which takes into account and facilitates dismantling and recovery - in particular, the reuse and recycling of WEEE. They are to minimise the disposal of WEEE as unsorted municipal waste and are to set up separate collection systems for such waste.

As from 13 August 2005, Member States are to ensure that holders of such waste can return it free of charge to distributors, and producers can set up and operate take-back systems. WEEE must be transported to authorised treatment facilities. By December 2006, a rate of separate collection of at least 4 kg on average, per inhabitant per year, of WEEE from private households must be achieved.

Producers of electrical and electronic equipment must apply the best available treatment, recovery and recycling techniques. By December 2006, the rate of recovery must be 75% in the case of IT and telecommunications equipment. Member States are to draw up a register of producers and keep information on the quantities and categories of electrical and electronic equipment placed on the market, collected, recycled and recovered in their countries.

A parallel directive relates to the use of certain hazardous substances in the aforementioned electrical and electronic equipment (with the exception of medical devices and monitoring and control equipment) and includes electric light bulbs and luminaires in households. It says that from July 2006, lead, mercury, cadmium, hexavelent chromium, PBBs and PBDEs must be replaced by other substances. The objective of this directive is to contribute to the recovery and elimination of WEEE and the protection of human health.

South Africa’s National Waste Management Strategy of 1999, which is now at the start of its implementation stage, prioritises waste minimisation across the board, along with reuse and recycling (see UGF Mar/Apr 2000 page 20). 

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Trading places
Regulating trade on Jo’burg’s pavements
Informal traders crowd the pavements of the Johannesburg inner city, testimony to the enterprising spirit of so many people trying to earn a living and gain a foothold in the economy. However, in appropriating the sidewalk space, this densely sprawling trade impacts on other users of the city – restricting pedestrian thoroughfares, obstructing entranceways to formal retail outlets, and encroaching on access to privately owned properties. With a general disregard for by-laws governing street trading and the disposal of waste and litter, it also impacts negatively on the urban environment. A lack of law enforcement in the city has undoubtedly allowed such problems to escalate.

While the City authorities and other City agencies have already responded to this burgeoning informal trade by developing city markets in association with major transport nodes – as at Metro Mall and Faraday Station – as well as in other precincts – such as Quartz Street and Yeoville – the demand for pavement trading remains high.

The Economic Development Unit (EDU) of the City of Johannesburg, working in partnership with Metropolitan Trading Company and the Central Johannesburg Partnership, is now rolling out a programme to provide adequate facilities and services for informal pavement traders within a regulated operating framework. The first new trading stalls have been erected on Plein Street.

Keith Atkins, CEO of Metropolitan Trading Company (MTC) explains that the EDU was tasked by the Mayoral Committee to develop and implement this programme to accommodate informal pavement traders. The project forms part of a much wider development strategy that deals with issues across the full spectrum of the Johannesburg economy and supports the City’s 2030 Vision – which points to Johannesburg as a ‘World Class African City’ by 2030.

MTC is the agency that was established by the City of Johannesburg, in 1999, to develop and manage appropriate facilities to accommodate taxis and street traders – mainly in the inner city but also in other semi-urban nodes across the Johannesburg Metropolitan Area.

In terms of the pavement trading project, the Central Johannesburg Partnership (CJP), a private sector organisation with a strong and active interest in the renewal and management of the inner city, was contracted (by MTC, on behalf of the City) to design, supply and install some 700 trading stalls, along identified streets, by year end.

Neil Fraser, executive director of the CJP, says that this contract was based on the trading stalls that CJP had installed in the mid-1990s in the Central Improvement District – the city precinct around the Johannesburg High Court. In the new stalls the original design has been modified, with improvements made on aspects such as the width of the roof canopy and the use of steel mesh rather than solid steel side panels, and variations have been developed to accommodate different traders’ needs.

A range of models
All the stalls are self-contained, stand-alone units, constructed of galvanised steel tubes, sections and mesh, with a steel sheet roof canopy. Design firm, Wilde at Heart, was appointed, on tender, to develop a range of different prototypes to suit different traders’ needs.

Larger stalls (2 m x 1 m and 2 m x 800 mm and about 2.2 m high) are designed with fitted and swing shelving – for fruit and vegetables, shoes, or similar – and with open hanging space for clothes and fashion accessories. Smaller stalls (about 1 m x 1 m and 1 m x 800 mm), with various shelving configurations, are designed for traders cooking and selling food, roasting mealies or peanuts, selling sweets, and for hair braiders and barbers, cobblers, photographers and telephone renters, among others. All stalls include day storage space at the base and bins on the side for rubbish. They are designed to be bolted into concrete footings on the pavement.

Locating the stalls
The EDU programme is based on existing pavement trading patterns in the city. The first phase of the roll out will see new stalls erected along Plein, Bree and Jeppe Streets, and at the intersection of Von Wielligh and Commissioner. A further phase is focused around the Joubert Park precinct – Hoek Street, Klein and King George Streets, Noord Street and adjacent to the Park Central shopping centre – and will include new stalls as well as the refurbishment of some existing facilities.

CJP was responsible for the professional land surveys of each pavement within the study area. Fraser says this work has been carried out over the past four months or so, with surveyors working nights and weekends because dense trading and congested pavements otherwise prevented accurate measurement and plotting of the pavement details to identify suitable location points for the stalls. The surveys note all obstacles to the placement of stalls, such as manholes, street furniture, bus shelters, taxi ranks, drainage pipes, trees, entrances to buildings, and by-law restrictions.

Street plans were then developed on a block-by-block basis, calculating the trading capacity for each area, optimum positions for trading stalls, and the optimum number of stalls for each area. These positions were then numbered to allow for allocation.

Stalls are currently being allocated to individual traders. The traders’ existing locations along each street have been taken into account and, as far as possible, replicated on the layout plans for the new stalls. Once the stalls are in place, no other trading will be allowed on the pavements.

Disputed territory
Throughout this process, the City has consulted with the street traders themselves, various informal traders’ associations, the shopkeepers in the affected areas, and relevant Council and stakeholders’ committees.

The new stall designs were workshopped with traders’ groups and various modifications were made to accommodate their input – adjusting sizes and inside layouts, for example.

In spite of this, some traders are objecting to the roll out of the new stalls and the removal of improvised stalls on the pavements. And they are reportedly questioning the constitutionality of Jo’burg’s street trading by-laws.

At the beginning of November, following the installation of the first stalls in Plein Street, street traders called for an urgent meeting with Johannesburg’s executive mayor, Amos Masondo. At the meeting, Masondo stressed that the informal trading sector is seen as an important component of the economy and it is recognised in the City’s economic development strategy. However, he said that informal trade would only be allowed in an organised manner in designated trading areas.

Masondo pointed out that street trading is not a one-sided issue. “As a city we cannot stop enforcing the law,” he said. “Street trading by-laws are there to ensure that not only the needs of street traders are met, but also the needs of other people in the city – pedestrians, service providers, property owners – and that the rights of others in public areas and open spaces are upheld.

The Traders Crisis Committee reportedly appreciated Masondo’s response and confirmed that it is keen to pursue the search for solutions, but further mass action is planned. In particular, the traders are objecting to the JMPD (Johannesburg Metropolitan Police Department) confiscating their goods – allegedly stealing them.

Managing trading space
The intention in the EDU’s pavement trading programme is that traders will pay a rental for the stalls and services provided (including waste management) – ranging from about R100 a month for the larger stalls (roughly equivalent to R3.30 a day) to about R40 for the smaller stalls (R1.30 a day). Each trader is required to sign a lease which will serve as a licence to trade in a particular stall. Traders who are working with food or personal products (such as hair braiding) will require additional health licences.

MTC and CJP have formed a joint venture to ensure effective ongoing management of the pavement-trading sector within the city precincts defined by this programme. CJP will be responsible for general management, maintenance, and cleaning of the street trading areas, and for rent collection from the traders. MTC will manage the administrative functions including lease agreements, traders’ accounts and banking. The City remains the custodian of the stalls themselves.

Fraser says, “This made sense for us. CJP has a clear interest in good management in the city. We have established city improvement districts (CIDs) in most of the areas encompassed in this project, so we have people on the ground already – dealing with cleaning, security, maintenance and other such services.”

The joint venture between CJP and MTC allows for both parties to share resources, in effect, and, through their complementary services, to strengthen the regulatory presence and effectiveness in the informal street trading sector.

In Fraser’s view, effective regulation of traders and taxis is paramount for renewal to progress in the city. “Visual impressions are so important,” he says. “If people come into the city and find the traffic chaotic and streets and sidewalks filthy, they don’t even notice all the good work that is happening.”

Atkins sees this pavement-trading project as a valuable partnership between the City, MTC and CJP. He emphasises that the JMPD will also be required to play its part in enforcing by-laws. In his view it represents a further significant step towards reaching the City’s 2030 Vision.