The smoke over Kya Sand is toxic. We already stopped it once.
Burning plastic, tyres and medical waste has poisoned the air across 40+ suburbs. For three months, residents funded a solution that turned the trucks away and switched the smoke off. Now it needs you to keep it that way.
R85,100 a month pays for day guards who turn dump trucks away and stop fires as they start.
First things first
Do you live or work in the smoke zone?
Every suburb inside the blue circle sits in the fume-drift path of the Kya Sand dumps. Four live SensusAir sensors track the air in real time. If your neighbourhood is on this list, this is your air.
4 live SensusAir sensors
Independent, continuous air-quality readings feeding the free app.
40+ suburbs affected
From Cosmo City to Dainfern, Chartwell to Jukskei Park.
This isn't just smoke. It's poison you can't always see.
The Kya Sand dumps don't burn wood. They burn plastic, rubber, cables and medical waste — releasing dioxins, heavy metals and fine particles that lodge deep in the lungs. When the wind turns, it's in your home, your garden, your children's bedrooms.
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It targets little lungs first
Children, the elderly and asthma sufferers feel it worst — coughing, tight chests and flare-ups on the smoky nights.
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Toxins you can't wash off
Burning plastic and cable releases dioxins and heavy metals linked to long-term respiratory and cancer risk.
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Windows shut, all year
Families across 40+ suburbs keep windows closed and kids indoors when the smoke rolls in. That's not a life.
200truck-loads/day
Dumped at the closed Kya Sand site by "waste-lord" networks.
allAfrica & Mail & Guardian, 2025–26
3.67Mtonnes/yr
SA household waste that never enters formal collection each year.
Infrastructure News, Dec 2025
R350M/yr
Taxpayer cost to clear illegally dumped waste in SA.
Infrastructure News, Dec 2025
~1year left
Before Gauteng's formal landfill space is projected to hit capacity.
IOL / allAfrica, 2026
The proof it works
For three months, we breathed clean air again.
From November 2025 to February 2026, residents funded a security trial with Night Guard. Dump trucks were turned away at the gates. Fires were stopped as they started. And 40+ suburbs got their air back.
Unhealthy
Air quality during active burning
Good
Air quality during the funded trial
"The smoke comes right through the door, like it's inside the house after you've locked up."
The trial proved this is solvable — not with government waiting, but with enough neighbours each giving a little, every month.
Live from SensusAir
See the air on your street, right now.
SensusAir's free app shows exactly what's in the air around Kya Sand — the same independent data our community uses to plan school runs and outdoor time. Scan the QR in the app, or enter HEALKYASAND, to join the zone and get live alerts.
Join the Kya Sand zone
Open the SensusAir app → Scan QR
or enter code
HEALKYASAND
Our stories
Read only what interests you.
Short reads about the community, the science, the solution and the wins so far. Tap a card to open the full story.
The Community
How a WhatsApp group became a clean-air movement
4 min readRead →
The Proof
Three months of clean air — and what it meant to families
5 min readRead →
The Data
Live sensors: SensusAir puts the air in your pocket
3 min readRead →
The Partners
Meet the people making this work
4 min readRead →
Sponsor Clean Air
Less than a weekly coffee keeps the smoke off.
Pick a monthly level below. Every rand goes to contracted day-guard cover — no middlemen, no organiser salaries. Cancel any time.
Monthly target
R85,100
Pays for day guards on the Kya Sand dumps — turning trucks away and stopping fires as they start.
Real photos from Kya Sand streets — the dumping and burning our community lives beside every day. Have a photo from your road? Send it and we'll add it here.
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