Plastic manhole covers to curb metal theft across the City
The City of Cape Town is replacing metal thieves’ favourite item, cast-iron manhole covers, with plastic and ductile-iron covers – potentially saving the ratepayer millions of rands each year.
Manholes in new developments across the city are now fitted with hinged ductile-iron covers and frames.
Maintenance teams from the City’s Water and Sanitation Department are also replacing the stolen or missing cast-iron manhole covers in the established suburbs with the new generation polymer (synthetic) plastic covers if the manhole is
in the verge.
‘The latest statistics for metal theft across the city confirm that the cast-iron manhole covers are the most sought-after item for metal thieves, with 3 606 of these covers stolen across the city in 2014. This is an increase of over 21% if compared with 2013, when 2 979 manhole covers were stolen. We have to take action to curb these losses and have therefore opted for covers that have no monetary value for the thieves,’ says the City’s Mayoral Committee Member for Utility Services, Councillor Ernest Sonnenberg.
The actual cost to the City due to the theft of fire hydrant covers, meter covers and meters, manhole covers, and valves, amounted to nearly R13,5 million in 2014.
‘In fact, the cumulative cost to the City due to metal theft is R40,3 million since January 2012 to the end of last year. In this period we had to replace nearly 18 000 individual assets across the city. In the case of manhole covers, one should also bear in mind the danger that their removal poses to residents and the consequential costs of blockages due to inappropriate objects landing up in our sewer pipelines when the manhole covers have been removed,’ says Councillor Sonnenberg.
The older manhole covers are made of cast-iron. Metal thieves steal these covers, break them up with hammers, and sell the material off as scrap metal. The polymer plastic covers, however, have no scrap metal value and the ductile-iron covers have very little. It therefore makes sense to replace the older cast-iron manhole covers with these.
The cost to fit a polymer plastic cover is R500 each and that of a ductile-iron cover up to
R7 500, inclusive of the labour. It is significantly more expensive to fit the latter as the
ductile-iron cover fits into its own frame with a hinge and therefore the maintenance teams
first have to remove the existing frames for the old iron manhole covers before they can fit the ductile-iron manhole covers to the manhole.
The depth of the manholes across the city varies from 1 metre deep to 8 metres for those that are situated in hilly areas. If one survives the fall into an open manhole, the chances of survival are very slim due to the poisonous gases deep down in the sewer pipeline and sewage flows of up to 700 litres per second in some of the larger sewers.
Objects such as bricks, cement, rags and carpets are dumped into the city’s sewer lines and in the larger sewer pipelines even crates, trolleys and television sets have been found. These objects cause blockages that may take days to unblock at significant costs to the City.
‘This type of vandalism causes our sewers to overflow, posing a huge health risk to our residents and a danger to the immediate environment. Those who dump these objects into our sewers don’t realise or unfortunately do not care that the City had to spend nearly R123 million in the 2013/14 financial year on clearing up blockages. In fact, 72% of all sewer blockages relate to vandalism or illegal dumping and a disregard for the City’s by-laws. This is money that could have been spent on improving services,’ says Councillor Sonnenberg.
The City urges residents to report any suspicious or illegal activity to the Metals Theft Unit’s hotline on 0800 222 771. Furthermore, any missing manhole covers should please be reported to the City’s call centre on 0860 103 089 or by sending an SMS with the location of the problem as well as a short description to 31373 (maximum 160 characters).