A small victory for Zinniaville 

Rustenburg/Zinniaville –  The Bojanala Platinum District Municipality (BPDM) has refused Matzonox (Pty) Ltd, an Atmospheric Emissions Licence (AEL) for the operation of their biodigester on Wednesday 8 March 2023. 

The RCL Foods complex in Zinniaville consists of three plants, Rainbow, Epol, and a biogas plant—one of only two in the country. 

Matzonox provides waste management services for RCL Foods. A biodigester was built at the RCL Foods biogas plant as part of the Matzonox waste-to-value initiative.

The plant was commissioned in early 2020 to process animal manure from the company’s farms as well as partially treated effluent (waste) pumped from the RCL abattoir and the poultry by-products plant.

In Platinum Weekly’s issue of 2 April 2021, it was reported that residents in the Zinniaville area had had enough as many were complaining about a foul smell which lingered in Zinniaville and its industrial area. 

Since then, there have been several stakeholder meetings between the Zinniaville Rate Payer’s Association (ZRA), RCL Foods, and the Bojanala District Municipality, to discuss the recurring foul air experienced in the area, as well as RCL Foods’ waste-to-value Plant.

Matzanox’s air pollution licence was also discussed during these meetings. In order to apply for the AEL, Matzonox is required to host public participation meetings with affected communities. Although there are several residential suburbs of Rustenburg within 5 km of the plant, the closest include Karlien Park and Zinniaville directly to the south, Seraleng to the north-northeast, and Boitekong to the east. 

During the meeting at the Zinniaville Secondary School Hostel on 12 September 2022, the community voiced their concerns about the lingering smell. They spoke about the decline of their quality of life due to the smell, and medical practitioners were concerned about the health risk associated with the smell emanating from the plant.

In the BPDM’s report, it states that the key factors they considered in making their decision were as follows:

Negative responses from all the communities of Rustenburg Local Municipality (RLM) during public participation, which took place in 2022.

President investigations regarding the complaints received from the community of Zinniaville of the odours coming from Matzonox.

Incident of bad odours that was uncontrolled without any idea of the cause of the incident.
A letter dated 23 February 2023, from the RLM in support of the refusal of a provisional atmospheric emission licence (PAEL).
Operating without an AEL. 

The report also states that 80% of the comments received from the community during the first public participation meetings and 90% of the comments during the second meetings objected to the issuing of the AEL.

“It is due to your persistent and uncompromising struggle that we have been granted this small victory,” said ZRA chairperson Soyab Bham.  

He added that the ZRA must be informed about the appeal process, and assured the community that the ZRA will continue to keep the community’s best interest at heart. 

Platinum Weekly reached out to RCL FOODS for their comment. RCL FOODS corporate communications manager Virginia Horsley said: “Matzonox has studied the decision and it does not believe that there is merit to the reasons given for the refusal. We have appointed legal counsel to consider the matter further and to lodge an appeal of the decision.”

She added that from the application, which was submitted, it is clear that the AEL is only required for a small segment of the plant, which operates as a closed system and is currently at a very limited capacity. Horsley also added that for now, the plant will continue to operate given that there is no associated environmental impact.

#FosteringASenseOfCommunity