Mine company causes air pollution at Allen Farm Newcastle
Zanele Mathonsi
When you are driving from the beautiful rural area of Allen farm to Newcastle town, a few kilometers away before you reach town. As you drive you pass the waste dumping site, there’s a big company that is situated on the right side of the road. It is a company that is owned by a Chinese national by the name of Mr Chen and the company is called Encogenix. One day when I drove past there, I started to notice that there was a huge amount of air pollution that was coming from the site. I got curious and put on my activist lenses as I wanted to know what exactly was happening in there.
Fortunately for me when I looked closer at the signboard that had the name of the company, there was an email address and then I knew where to start. I emailed the man whose name appears next to the email address, and guess what he didn’t respond to any of my emails. I knew then that there was something fishy about that place. I organized a few people from my Organisation to accompany me to the site.
Upon our arrival we were welcomed by a security guard at the gate, fortunately for us, he allowed us in. We politely asked for the owner of the place, he came to us. When we tried to have a conversation with him, we couldn’t get the answers we were hoping for because the guy did not understand the language we were using to communicate with him and it was simple English. I wasn’t convinced that he did not understand us or he pretended as if he did not understand. We then had to speak with one of the employees that we found inside the premises.
He did not tell us his name but he told us exactly what is happening in there, apparently they are burning a large number of old tyres daily. This is causing a huge amount of air pollution. I happen to find this very harmful to all human beings who use that road daily. We then organized a picket, which was very successful. We still felt however that was not enough, because we wanted that man to get a clear message that we as community members could not tolerate what he was doing.
From my point of view, after I’ve spoken to one of the employees. I believe we as concerned community members need to stand up and organize a peaceful march against the owner of the place, and demand answers and clarity. He needs to disclose whether he has an environmental authorization to operate the place, and find out whether he complies with Section 24 of the Environmental Act. The act states that “everyone has the right to an environment that is not harmful to their health and well-being”.
