General household survey - Statistics South Africa

Statistics South Africa 34
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The proper disposal of household waste and refuse is also important to maintain environmental hygiene.
Figure 31 shows that the percentage of refuse removal services provided by municipalities throughout the
country was notably higher in the largely urbanised provinces of Gauteng (87,9%) and Western Cape
(88,1%) in 2011 compared to lower levels in more rural Eastern Cape (44,0%), Mpumalanga (38,5%) and
Limpopo (16,1%). Nationally, the percentage of households whose refuse was removed by the municipality
increased from 57,8% to 61,0% between 2002 and 2011. In 2011, 55,7% (down from 61,4% in 2010) of
South African households were paying for the removal of their refuse. In addition to the 57,8% of
households for whom refuse was removed on a weekly basis by the municipality, the municipality less
frequently removed refuse for a further 1,9% of households.
Figure 31: Percentage of households whose refuse is removed by the municipality at least once a
week by province, 2002, 2003, 2007 and 2011
12. Telecommunications
Figure 32 summarises statistics collected on access to functional landlines and cellular phones within the
sampled dwelling units in 2011. Nationally, less than ten per cent (9,1%) of households did not have
access to either landlines or cellphones. Households without access to these communication media were
most common in Northern Cape (19,3%), Eastern Cape (16,0%) and also Free State and North West (both
11,3%). Merely 0,8% of South African households used only landlines.
By comparison, three-quarters of South African households (75,5%) used only cellular phones in the
dwelling. The largest percentages were observed in Limpopo (88,3%), Mpumalanga (87,1%), North West
(81,8 %) and Free State (78,9%). Western Cape had the lowest percentage of households who had only
cellular phones in their dwellings (54,3%) and the highest percentage of households that were using only
landlines (2,9%). The use of a combination of both cellular phones and landlines in households was most
prevalent in the more affluent provinces, namely Western Cape (32,3%) and Gauteng (19,6%).
General Household Survey, July 2011