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In this article we take a look at the latest General Household Survey (GHS) relating to the environment and it is broken down by metropolitan area in South Africa.
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Dirty alley way
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So its pretty dirty hey?
Based on data supplied by Statistics South Africa, the table shows various metrics relating to the environment households find themselves in. We will be focusing on littering. Just what percentage of households feel that littering is a problem in their area? And we break the results down per metropolitan area.
- City of Tshwane: 25.1%
- Ekurhuleni: 25.9%
- City of Cape Town: 28.8%
- Buffalo City (East London): 29.5%
- Nelson Mandela Bay (Port Elizabeth): 30.6%
- All Metros:33.5%
- City of Johannesburg: 38.6%
- Mangaung: 39.1%
- eThekwini: 47.1%
If the numbers shown above doesn't worry you, it should. Basically it shows that 1 in 3 households believe that littering is a problem in their area. It is a disgustingly high number but its not surprising as everywhere you go in South Africa you see roads and open veld littered with rubbish and plastic. Clearly the majority of South Africans do not have any respect for their environment, and they can litter as someone else will just come and clean up after them.
Interestingly for air pollution the metro who had the highest percentage of households reporting air pollution was eThekwini, with 31% of households felt that air pollution was a problem, closely followed by the metro of Buffalo City (East London), with 30.5% of households reporting that air pollution is a problem, near neighbour Nelson Mandela Bay metro had the lowest percentage of households reporting that air pollution is a problem, with only 8.9% of households in Nelson Mandela Bay reporting air pollution being a problem.
Part of the problem for Buffalo City and air pollution might be the large number of households (7 000) using wood/coal for cooking purposes. Buffalo City metro households made up almost 14% of all households using coal/wood for cooking purposes. Ekurhuleni has by far the most households who reported using coal/wood for cooking purposes with this metro making up 39.2% of all households using coal/woo for cooking purposes. For those who do not know Ekurhuleni metro is where OR Tambo international airport is located with massive sprawling townships next to highways such as the R21, with Tembisa being a well known township. The fact that so many of these households use coal/wood for cooking ties in with the fact that 27% of households in this metro reporting that air pollution is a problem.