Governing waste, producing inequality: urban planning failures and environmental harm in Alexandra, Johannesburg

Abstract

Municipal solid waste (MSW) mismanagement remains one of the most pressing urban environmental challenges in the Global South. Despite South Africa’s progressive legislation, a significant implementation gap persists in historically marginalized townships. This paper examines MSW mismanagement in Alexandra, Johannesburg, through an integrated lens of Urban Political Ecology, Institutional Governance, and Environmental Justice. Using a mixed-methods case study, household surveys (n = 40), semi-structured interviews with municipal officials (n = 5), and systematic field observations, the study explores how apartheid-era planning legacies and contemporary governance constraints combine to produce persistent environmental harm. Findings show that Alexandra’s high-density urban form creates un-serviceability, leaving 80% of households with little or no formal collection. Residents experience waste mismanagement as slow violence, through river contamination, toxic smoke from burning, and disproportionate health burdens. Informal coping practices such as dumping and community clean-ups are pragmatic survival strategies rather than evidence of neglect. The study contributes by operationalizing the metabolic rift concept, extending Schlosberg’s recognition dimension of environmental justice, and situating township spatial form as an active agent in producing exclusion. Policy recommendations include decentralized collection systems, formalized waste-picker integration, and nature-based river restoration, drawing on comparative models from Tshwane and community-based ecological interventions in Indonesia.