More than 90 volunteers rolled up their sleeves for a clean-up near the Fisantekraal taxi rank and surrounding areas on Saturday September 16 to commemorate World Clean Up Day.
The volunteers were mostly children from Greenville and Fisantekraal and residents from Durbanville, according to Danielle Cronje, member of the Mosselbank River Conservation Team, which hosted the event.
World Clean Up Day is celebrated annually on September 16 when volunteers are called into action to collect and manage waste plaguing their areas, according to the World Cleanup Day’s website.
“The target area for the clean-up was the Fisantekraal Taxi Rank and adjacent open areas such as a stormwater pond. It is important to clean these areas otherwise the litter ends up in the stormwater drains and ponds, which in return ends up in the Mosselbank River, which causes water pollution and has detrimental effects further downstream and ultimately the ocean,” she said.
In total, 140 bags with 470kg of rubbish were collected on the day.
“78 bags of materials will be recycled by LW Recycling and Trade. The items collected were plastic bottles, plastic and cardboard packaging, chip packets, shopping bags, diapers among others. After our clean-up, the City of Cape Town’s Bingo surprised the children and talked to them about the 4 R’s, ‘Rethink, Reduce, Reuse and Recycle’”, Ms Cronje said.
Ward 105 councillor Ruan Beneke who oversees Sub-council 7 and the Fisantekraal area, also agrees that the taxi rank has become a hotspot for illegal dumping.
“The taxi rank is one of the dumping hotspots in Fisantekraal, there’s ten other ones as well. In light of this, we’ve run numerous education/recycling campaigns around the schools in the area and handed pamphlets at the taxi rank itself.
“During certain months there’s more litter being reported as we move closer to the festive period. Last season, there were 13 tipper trucks filled with rubble that was taken away over a two week period,” he said.
When asked how the City is monitoring and tackling the dumping issue, he said: “We have law enforcement placed at these dumping sites and writing out by-law fines for illegal dumping.
“At the community meetings we’re educating the public on the evils on illegal dumping, the health risks and the broken window syndrome. We also go out to spaza shops to see they have the correct number of bins and other Fisantekraal businesses. We also ask the community to hold these illegal dumpers accountable.”
