Dumped cups sprout new life
AN UMHLANGA restaurateur has brought lockdown litter on the local promenade into a food production process.
In his desperation to find a solution to the litter problem brought about by the sudden surge in demand for single-use coffee cups, in which drinks have had to be served in terms of lockdown regulations, Duncan Heafield came up with the idea of giving them a useful purpose – planting veggie seedlings in them.
He donates them to small-scale farmers in nearby oThongathi (Tongaat) and Waterloo who plant them in the open soil. When they are ready to harvest, he buys them back to provide the ingredients for what’s on the menu at his Bellézar Beach Café in the Cabana Beach complex.
“I brought back five staff who had been sent home for lockdown,” Heafield told the Independent on Saturday.
“I couldn’t put them back in the same positions as before, but we effectively cleared the entire promenade of waste material.”
Two are now litter gatherers, two sorters and a planter.
He said that with the municipal cleaners being on lockdown, bins were overflowing, their content threatening to pollute the adjacent ocean and with gyms closed, many people were exercising on the promenade.
“When coffee cups land on the beach, one wouldn’t be allowed there to clean the place up.”
He said patrons would normally have been served drinks in crockery that would be cleaned, but government regulations forced outlets to single-use containers.
His restaurant has a transparent ceiling and is filled with greenery to add to its tropical feel and would probably make a perfect nursery. However, he decided to keep its character as an eatery when the number of cups to be turned into seedling containers grew exponentially and he set up the seedling nursery at his home nearby.
Some are available for sale to patrons.
Heafield, who is passionate about food security, has not only planted his seedling containers with food for his menus, such as peas, peppers, tomatoes, coriander, lettuce and kale, but added things like spinach and cabbage, which the emerging farmers he serves say they can sell on the open market.
He is shocked at the increase in food prices brought about by the lockdown but believes a solution lies in people growing their own food.
“It’s beyond me how people can pay some of the prices that are being asked,” he said, adding that green peppers that were R40/kg before lockdown went up to R70/kg. “And green peppers are easy to grow.”
This week his initiative that combines recycling, job creation and giving back to the community has planted seedlings in 27 000 coffee cups.
“Our hope is that other competitors will embrace this,” said Heafield.