Johannesburg's landfill problem has reached crisis levels.

Only two of the city's four municipal landfills, Robinson Deep and Goudkoppies, are still fully operational. But even those are nearly full: Robinson Deep is 99% full, Goudkoppies 96%. Ennerdale is only accepting builders' rubble and soil, and Marie Louise has effectively shut its gates and taken in zero tonnes of general waste between January and March 2026, down from over 150,000 tonnes just two quarters earlier. Marie Louise is also physically overfull, by 773,973 cubic metres, according to the last landfill airspace survey conducted in October 2025.

Pikitup is reinforcing Marie Louise's boundary wall and has plans to expand its capacity, but the wall project has stalled because the contractor hasn't been paid. It’s a familiar refrain across the entity's infrastructure projects. And this isn't new: Pikitup’s landfills have been flagged for near-capacity since at least 2020.

To keep up with the roughly 150,000 tonnes of waste Johannesburg generates each month, the city relies on two privately operated landfills outside its borders, which handled 17% of all disposed waste between January and March 2026.

But dumping further afield comes at a cost: Pikitup's 2025/26 quarter three report warns that relying on private landfills carries a real “operational, logistical and financial impact”, and that plans to expand its own landfills should be sped up as a result. It also warns that service failures, from long queues to missed rounds to illegal dumping, are likely to worsen the longer this continues.

Produced in partnership with Our City News.