The landfill in Lambert’s bay started officially burning on the evening of 1 May 2022, in that time it never stopped burning (The site has been burning occasionally for years). It’s been weeks now, and most of the people living in this area are sick, myself included. My throat is burning like crazy, I am coughing, have a massive continuous headache and I cannot smell anything. I can see the smoke from the landfill from my home... but I cannot smell it anymore. The chemicals that we are being exposed to are lethal for extended periods of time, and I am aware of a few people who have asthma and have been struggling more than myself; who generally is a healthy person.

There are horse stables at the feet of this landfill and all those horses are sick. They all have infections in their eyes and three of the horses have “snotty-nose” which is one of the most harmful things to a horse. I truly do fear for their well-being, they have nowhere to go once the smoke covers the valley in the evenings. They have no option but to inhale that smoke. I was thinking of getting the Ati-Animal Cruelty League involved but that will just take extra time, which in reality the horses don’t have, which is in turn totally unacceptable and totally undesirable. An immediate plan of action needs to be put in place for these animals’ sake. It’s also not totally a matter of wrongdoing but also involves poor planning 100 years back. It left the area with few options to keep the landfill under control or move over to a system that should benefit and restore nature for all that breaths this air.

I was made aware that there is a 5year plan for the areas around us and the management of rubbish removal and management of the dumping site. These plans were "mentioned" 15 years back already to locals who tried getting the landfill cleaned up with no luck. Unfortunately, Lambert’s Bay area cannot wait any longer. We will all be very ill (Or worse) by then. I’ve spoken to a person who might help and had a plan to get it subsided and to be able to wait it out a bit for any plan to fall in place. Unfortunately, the person was just thanked for his input by a representative of Cedarberg Municipality and was just told to wait, the local municipality is working on it. He is a Chemical Technician and has worked on quite a few water plants as well as the maintaining and keeping of sewage plants, as well as the rehabilitation of these sites. At this stage, any given input could help towards solving problems and finding ways to receive and prevent future problems and disasters like this. Unfortunately, he was not taken seriously, and now the dumping site as a whole is burning and smoldering by spontaneous combustion.

I am fearing for the lives of people. The National bird island already houses highly endangered bird species. All habitants of the valley and the estuary. The underground water supply, and finally just the nature around us. It rained on Sunday, finally, but unfortunately, that rainwater just ran through the landfill, taking all those toxic materials, chemicals, and gasses down to the vlei-land below (which is a mere 20m from the estuaries waterline) undoubtedly poisoning the water underground too which upon turn make the water unusable for al living creatures. Parts of the landfill are also situated in the riverbed itself and if the river ever decides to run down again, our landfill will be washed right into the ocean, leaving a much bigger mess to try and clean up.

After numerous attempts from various sources and locals to get this landfill moved or on an environmentally friendly structure there is no movement on this. Most of the feedback given to the locals is that it's been sabotaged since 2 May 2022. This is an absolute lie they are telling us. I have footage of this landfill burning from an angle they cannot sabotage. This is the story they tell the people to stop making them ask any questions and demand solutions. If this was true, why the holes that it burns through at the vlei-land side? If this was true why not have people on guard 24hours to prevent the sabotage? If this was true why not smother it with sand?

There are records going back of communication about this landfill for almost 15years, with no actual movement on this. Now it's just poisoning the area and humans that reside here.

Please help to stop the ignorance of the Toxic, Smouldering, chaotic landfill site by our Local Municipality and Government officials and save this beautiful area and all the inhabitants that reside here, including the humans and our health. Let the Municipality know how you feel by supporting this petition to give 30 days to come up with an action plan to deal with and prevent further burning of this environmental disaster that is the Lambert's Bay landfill site. The Cederberg municipality had breached several environmental laws, including section 24 of the Constitution which highlights everyone’s right to a healthy environment protected from pollution.