Gauteng is staring down a wave of violent turf wars that fuse two shadow economies: illegal mining and informal recycling. Armed zama zamas are battling over derelict mine shafts and scrap-value corridors, while waste recyclers fight to hold ground near landfill sites and busy arterial roads. Communities pay the price. In the south of Johannesburg, Riverlea and Naturena have already endured running gun battles that turned neighbourhoods into war zones. Now the fault line has shifted east: Brakpan’s Plastic City has erupted as illegal miners and recyclers clash over land, access, and revenue. The result: explosions, shootings, arson, at least two deaths, and an exodus of families.
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Gauteng’s Illegal Mining Flashpoints Keep Multiplying
For over a decade, abandoned shafts across the province have drawn organised, well-armed syndicates. Zama zamas descend into disused tunnels and fight rival factions above and below ground to control entry points, ore routes, and smelter connections. Residents in hot spots describe nights punctuated by automatic gunfire, days disrupted by road closures and sinkholes, and weeks of fear while police chase moving targets.
At the same time, Gauteng’s informal recycling economy has expanded around landfill perimeters and transport spines. Low-income residents and cross-border migrants survive by sorting, storing and selling waste. Competition over the best collection zones—often near municipal dumps—frequently collides with zama zama routes, especially in historic mining belts where dumps and old shafts sit side by side. Plastic City, wedged between Main Reef Road and the Weltevreden landfill, sits squarely in that collision zone.
Brakpan’s Plastic City Under Siege
Plastic City is not a typical settlement. Tin-and-tarpaulin shacks crowd narrow alleys. Piles of plastic and scrap form walls and walkways. Fires smoulder constantly as residents melt, sort and compact recyclables. Underfoot, a honeycomb of abandoned tunnels carries the ghosts—and the risks—of Gauteng’s gold era.
Security consultant Marius van der Merwe doesn’t mince words: “It’s a battle for real estate. Plastic City sits near shafts the zama zamas want to work, and right next to Weltevreden landfill—prime income for recyclers.” That geography turns every street corner into a checkpoint and every rubbish pile into a contested resource.
Through late August and early September, simmering tension ignited. A shootout on 30 August left two people dead. Days later, in the pre-dawn dark, an armed group—reportedly a Basotho faction—surged out of the landfill and stormed the settlement, firing into shacks and torching homes. Families ran. Children screamed. Within a week, gun battles became routine. Residents reported underground explosions in old tunnels—retaliation, they believe, against the miners. A house near the settlement was raided in the chaos. In one clash, locals say the recyclers’ kingpin was shot dead. Then the firestorms came. “Plastic City almost burned down last week,” Van der Merwe recalled after watching a blaze swallow dozens of homes.
What’s left is charred and half-empty. Many residents fled with nothing. A handful have already started rebuilding, hammering together walls under the shadow of armed patrols—evidence of survival instinct, but also of a state that hasn’t yet secured the ground.
Who’s Fighting—and Why That Matters
Both sides draw heavily from foreign-national communities, many of whom are undocumented. “On one side you’ve got Basotho zama zamas, often joined by Malawian, Mozambican and Zimbabwean nationals,” Van der Merwe explained. “On the other hand, recyclers from those same countries who pick the suburbs and work the dump.” That composition complicates police work and injects xenophobic risk into an already volatile feud. Rumours spread fast. Trust evaporates. Mediation collapses.
Beneath the headlines sits a blunt economic driver: control over income streams. Zama zamas pursue ore and ore-adjacent rackets (security, protection, smelting access). Recyclers defend routes, buy-back hubs, and depot relationships. Plastic City straddles both. Whoever controls it controls cash flow.
Brakpan Community Caught in The Crossfire
The settlement straddles a main arterial into town. When the guns speak, the violence spills out. Ward 97 councillor Brandon Pretorius warns that Anzac and central Brakpan live “in daily danger” while sporadic raids fail to restore order. Parents now self-impose curfews. On heavy-gunfire days, children stay home from school.
Displacement compounds the risk. With large sections of Plastic City in ashes, some families have camped near a local primary school. City of Ekurhuleni spokesperson Zweli Dlamini says the spillover will disrupt teaching and learning and could harm pupils. Van der Merwe adds that a recent running gun battle unfolded near public sporting facilities—an alarming sign that no area is off-limits.
Municipal services strain under the pressure. The Weltevreden landfill had to shut temporarily because of violence, interrupting waste operations across the region. Meanwhile, illegal tunnelling has chewed the subsoil beneath key roads: sections of Main Reef Road have sunk into sinkholes, and vibrations threaten pipes and cabling. Each collapse becomes a detour, a service outage, another bill for law-abiding ratepayers.
“Residents are tired,” says Pretorius. “We want safety, accountability, and decisive action to restore the rule of law.”
What Officials are Doing—and Why it’s Not Enough Yet
City and provincial authorities have beefed up security at dumps near disused mines to stop recyclers and zama zamas from turning them into staging grounds. The Ekurhuleni Metro Police and SAPS have run joint operations, seizing mining gear and making arrests. The SANDF has supported deployments during peak flare-ups. Yet the violence continues, and even security personnel get targeted. Van der Merwe survived an apparent hit while conducting surveillance; he returned fire and escaped.
Dlamini frames the wider risk: “Illegal mining is a major problem in our historic mining city. It endangers lives and destroys critical infrastructure.” The Angelo gas-leak disaster in 2023 remains a grim reminder of what destabilised ground and unregulated activity can trigger.
Intelligence suggests the Basotho faction is rearming for another push to dislodge the recyclers. Police have reinforced the area, but everyone admits a reactive, stop-start playbook can’t end a conflict powered by poverty, profit, and guns.
How Gauteng Can Stop the Burn: Policing, Policy and People
This crisis will not fix itself. It demands a coordinated, multi-layered response that secures the area now and chokes off the drivers of violence over time.
1) Run Sustained, Intelligence-led Operations—Daily, not Monthly.
- Stand up a joint command (SAPS, Ekurhuleni Metro Police, Hawks, Home Affairs, DPCI) with clear targets: neutralise ringleaders, seize weapons and explosives, shut smelting routes, and prosecute financiers.
- Pair enforcement with immigration processing to resolve documentation issues without blanket criminalising poverty.
- Maintain a visible, static presence at Plastic City, Weltevreden landfill, and shaft access points to prevent immediate re-occupation by armed groups.
2) Move People to Safety—and Support Them to Stay out of Harm’s Way.
- Execute an emergency relocation for displaced families to serviced, managed sites away from active shafts and the landfill perimeter.
- Provide trauma counselling, school placement support, and short-term income assistance so households aren’t forced back into contested zones.
- Offer fast-track enterprise support (stipends, tools, depot links) for legitimate recyclers who register and relocate.
3) Harden the Infrastructure.
- Seal or backfill abandoned shafts near settlements; install ground-stability monitoring along Main Reef Road and other corridors; repair sinkholes with geotechnical oversight.
- Secure landfill perimeters with access control, lighting, and CCTV, and separate formal recycling zones from residential areas.
- Protect water and power lines with tamper sensors and rapid-response teams.
4) Cut the Shadow Markets.
- Enforce scrap-metal regulations, trace transactions, and shut non-compliant buy-backs.
- Target gold-ore fencing and money laundering through financial crime units.
- Work with Lesotho, Mozambique, and Zimbabwe on cross-border policing of arms and syndicate flows.
5) Build Lawful Livelihoods.
- Expand public works and artisan training in mining-belt communities.
- Convert safe, exhausted mine land into small-enterprise zones and materials-recovery facilities that absorb informal recyclers into formal value chains at fair rates.
- Fund youth programs that pull recruits away from gangs with skills, stipends, and placement pathways.
Stop The War—Before it Spreads
Plastic City is a reminder of how quickly vulnerable communities can be destabilised when economic desperation, abandoned infrastructure, and weak enforcement converge. Brakpan’s crisis may be acute, but similar risks exist wherever Gauteng’s old mine shafts sit alongside today’s informal economies. Addressing these challenges will require steady cooperation between government, law enforcement, and communities to restore safety, protect infrastructure, and support livelihoods.
By focusing on practical solutions—resettling families safely, securing key services, and formalising recycling opportunities—Gauteng can reduce the risk of future conflicts and help residents live, work, and study in greater stability.
