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Johannesburg, South Africa 2018
Boombadotmobi is a local young startup that want to definitely cancel the scourge of illegal dumping in Johannesburg. Sbusiso Shongwe (him) and Nondumiso Sibiya (her) are the core of this company, a formal organization born in 2017 with the aim to eradicate illegal dumping and create a sustainable waste collection entity.
Illegal dumping is a huge plague in Johannesburg and the most afflicted areas are, even not to say, the townships. Diepsloot is one of the biggest townships in the north of the city and has been impacted by illegal dumping since it has been created: the Afrikaans name means “deep ditch”, so, what would you aspect from a legal settlement over an allowed dumping area? People living in this township are not really aware of the consequences of this problem and still continue to fill up every space, every channel, every running river with any kind of waste: building rumble, garden refusal and also daily rubbish. Result of this behaviour is an inadequate soil where to build and the contamination of all the waterways. Due to these huge problems, people get sick, animals grown unhealthy and crops are contaminated by various poisons.
Boombadotmobi want to sensitise all the people of Johannesburg and offer them the possibility to have their waste removed with no damage for the environment. Using a tailored network, they connect waste generators (private as well company) with truck drivers. These last are tracked from the waste collecting point to the legal dumping area; once the necessary prove of the legal dumping are produced, they are paid by bank transaction. Different kind of waste are collected in different areas and reused for different scope: for example garden removals will be future soil compost and building rumble will be, if possible, soil basement or road filler.
To sensitise people it is also necessary to go on the field and speak directly to the people. Sometimes it is tough to face reality: discovering that where a couple of days before there was a green land, now it is covered by building rumble, it makes you angry. To see that someone is quickly building a new shop over that rumble it makes you even angrier because, beside the possible danger for the environment, they are also grabbing public space. Bombadotmobi is in constant contact with the authority to avoid this problem and the more they discovered, the more they alert.
Born from the necessity to safeguard their city, these two guys have been created a business that can help many developing countries to avoid a huge, common problem. Like the Boomba, Zulu name for the Dung, this company has been given the purpose to reuse the waste to create something useful for the community. This guys are the pride of Johannesburg and South Africa needs more of this company to improve his conditions.