Community starts clean up, to teach others
KwaThemba residents in Ezibeleni embarked on a cleanup campaign in their neighbourhood on Saturday to encourage the community to stop littering and create awareness about the importance of a clean environment.
One of the organisers of the campaign, Vuyisa August, said about 40 KwaThemba residents participated in the clean-up, which was divided into various sections of the area.
“We decided to come together and clean our neighbourhood since we are the ones who dump the rubbish.
“People always say the municipality is not doing anything, but we are the ones who scatter all this rubbish. We decided to do
“something about it in my neighbourhood, while assisting the municipality which has been struggling to collect refuse due to their broken trucks.” August said the group planned to do clean-ups either every Saturday or fortnightly, to motivate the community to keep their area clean.
We have not decided on
“many things since we have just launched the campaign.
“Today we focused on paper material and other items we can burn without causing any hazard.”
He said he believed it was important for residents to be educated about the importance of a clean environment.
“We hope to speak to residents and create awareness about the importance of keeping one s surroundings
’ clean.
“We will identify spots where people can burn their rubbish and another to throw garden refuse.
“There used to be no
‘ dumping signs in open spaces
’ here so residents know they are not supposed to throw rubbish around but they still do, which is where the education aspect comes in.
“We need to take responsibility and stop complaining about the municipality not doing anything when we can do some things ourselves.”
Another resident, Lunga Tokwe, said the campaign should continue until it was etched in every KwaThemba resident s mind that dumping
’ rubbish was unhealthy for everyone.
“We need to do this until it becomes a culture to pick up rubbish when we see it, and encourage those who continue to litter to take care of their own rubbish.”
Enoch Mgijima Local Municipality spokesperson Lonwabo Kowa said the institution had provided cleaning gloves and a dumpster to assist in the clean-up.