New litter boom installed on tributary
AIMING to manage waste in open and green spaces, Durban Green Corridors has installed a litter boom on a tributary near the Quarry Road informal settlement.
Green Corridors is a non-profit organisation that works in sustaining the environment by taking care of green spaces in collaboration with communities that live in and around them.
Siphiwe Rakgabele, who is Green Corridors’ clean-ups and litter booms co-ordinator, said the aim of the organisation was to find a way for natural open spaces to be assets in the community.
“Many communities find themselves living between the built environment and often stressed natural open spaces. These habitats become thorns in the community’s side.
“Anti-social behaviour, poor environmental management and illegal activity remove any socio-economic, civic, or ecological value. The litter boom project serves as one of the organisation’s mandates to protect the environment.”
According to Green Corridors, the litter booms are floating devices installed at strategic locations along waterways to collect and retain floating litter, vegetation, and other debris. They are secured to the banks and float on the river catching floating waste, but allow water to flow under and around them. The waste is collected so it does not end up in the ocean.
“Our community-managed litter booms, set up on tributaries close to informal settlements, that feed the uMngeni River, trap bulk plastics. This is removed from the waterway, sorted, and transported to the Green Corridors’
KwaMashu Beneficiation Centre (KMBC). At the centre, again with local community involvement, research is done on how to best use the waste ‘resource’,” said Rakgabele.
The NPO has installed 16 litter booms across the city. Rakgabele said that on average their team, which includes other organisations, collected one to two tons of plastic waste per month from the three litter booms in the uMngeni River.
“That amounts to many job hours for waste collectors and raw material for the recycling at the KMBC, which is looking at using waste for a variety of practical applications such as in pavers and school desks,” he said.
Green Corridors also has an associated learning programme that demonstrates and teaches people how to live off, around and with the land, helping them understand that the health of humans and nature is connected.