Planting ‘enviro pride’

RESIDENTS in Verulam are keeping their suburb clean and litter-free by partnering with schools to educate the younger generation on environmental issues.

The vice chairman of the Verulam Environmental Association, Vasu Moodley, said this strategy was their key tactic in ensuring that Verulam remained an environmentally safe place to live.

“Every few months we educate children about keeping the environment clean, recycling, and the role trees and plant life play in our community. We have found that through our projects at schools, children are taking what they have learnt and implementing it in the home and with their parents.”

Apart from awareness drives at school, Moodley and his team are constantly monitoring the suburb.

“The reason why we have been able to maintain a neat suburb is because of ongoing efforts and constant monitoring. We had a number of people who would miss the refuse pick-up in the mornings and resort to dumping their bin bags on vacant plots. We stopped this activity in its tracks by going through the bin bags looking for letters or anything that could identify the culprits.”

Moodley said the offenders were given warnings and if they repeated the offence they were fined and even prosecuted.

“Through the school we try to do clean ups and tree plantings in the area and we get the parents involved as well.

“During our clean ups we found that areas around the homes were also being neglected. To encourage residents to start taking care of those areas we started a competition to see who has the best and neatest-looking verges. This competition has encouraged residents to start taking pride.

“What people failed to understand was the way they kept their properties and surrounding areas was a reflection of themselves,” he said.

“This is not something that can be eradicated in one go. It takes constant time and awareness for it to work.

“People need to remember if they won’t throw a sweet wrapper in their living rooms, they should not be doing it on the street.”