-
Action SA’s National Chairperson, Michael Beaumon says the city is not keeping up with its sewage responsibilities
Political party ActionSA says the City of Cape Town is reckless with its treatment of sewage, saying it’s pumping untreated waste into the sea.
This claim made via public statements, with Action SA also stating that the City’s Marine Outfall Pipes have alarming consequences for public health and the environment.
Big stink: Camps Bay beach pollution warning reignites sewage row between City and ActionSA
— Herman Mashaba (@HermanMashaba) December 15, 2025
ActionSA have filed criminal charges against the City of Cape Town, saying it should consider alternative means of waste management.
Citing a study conducted in 2023, political party ActionSA says the City of Cape Town ought to consider alternative means of sewage waste management.
“The city is not keeping up with its responsibilities in terms of treating the sewage before it goes out, reporting on the condition and quality of that effluent that’s going out. And we don’t think it’s appropriate that the city hides behind the fact that in 1895, it started putting sewage out into the ocean and in 2025, this is the most creative way it can deal with sewage outflows, in our country. I live in a municipality that doesn’t have an ocean and sewage has to be treated in other ways. So what’s being asked of the City of Cape Town is not something that other municipalities aren’t doing: Johannesburg doesn’t put its sewage out into an ocean,” says ActionSA’s National Chairperson, Michael Beaumon.
Accordingly, the City of Cape Town in the current budget year has set aside R200 million to upgrade various aspects of the marine outfall, which include electric water pumps and sewage screens.
The City also disputes the extent to which it is said to be polluting the seas with raw sewage.
“Technologies are being developed to break down these ‘forever chemicals’ that get flushed into the sewer systems: so your medications, your detergents…those kinds of things; it’s not unusual. Of all the sewage that the city discharges, from all of our wastewater treatment works, of all of it, our marine water outfalls only discharge 5% screened sewage into the ocean. 95% of our city’s sewage makes its way through existing wastewater treatment works,” says City of Cape Town’s Water and Sanitation MMC, Zahid Badroodien.
Badroodien also says the City has directed budget towards upgrades of at least four existing land-based wastewater treatment works, including Zandvliet located in Macassar, with projects about to start at Potsdam in Milnerton, the Macassar Wastewater Treatment Works and Athlone also to be underway, soon.
