When Johannesburg’s Marie Louiselandfillclosed in September last year, the city’s waste management problem collided with a livelihood crisis. About 140 waste reclaimers, who had spent years and some even decades recovering recyclables from the site, were given just one day’s notice. The closure exposed a critical gap in South Africa’s just transition planning, where the informal workers who form the backbone of its recycling system are being left behind.
“There are young mothers and old women who are barely surviving and who are depending on this line of work. Taking this away from them is going to impact their ability to support three to five people in a household,” said Luyanda Hlatshwayo, the leader of the African Reclaimers Organisation (ARO). On 1 September 2025, Johannesburg waste management company Pikitup shut the Marie Louise landfill site, adding to the closure of four others in the city.
According to Pikitup’s 2023/24 annual report, the site received 23% of the city’s waste. The report warns that the company will run out of space within the next few years, creating a waste disposal crisis. Hlatshwayo highlighted the devastating impact the closure has had on female waste reclaimers whose livelihoods depend on recyclables.
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The ARO had absorbed four women and hoped to take in more, he added. “It’s a shame because if we had collaborated with the municipality, we would have absorbed all of them.” Forty-five-year-old Lilian Thamae from Braamfischerville, who has combed through trash at the Marie Louise site for 25 years, hoping to find something valuable, recalls the morning she woke up to a WhatsApp message notifying reclaimers of the closure. Before the shutdown, Thamae recovered a variety of materials, ranging from plastics and cardboard to bottles and wood, before they were flattened by landfill machinery.
The mother of three boys and a girl made R2 500 a week from the waste material she sold to Waste World. “My children asked me how we were going to survive after the closure of the place that fed us and sent them to school. I assured them a plan would come,” Thamae said.
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