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TUESDAY 21 July 2020 | Tel: 021 910 6500 | Email: post@peoplespost.co.za | Website: www.peoplespost.co.za
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People’s Post
ENVIRONMENT
Keeping the canals clean SAMANTHA LEE-JACOBS SAMANTHA.LEE@PEOPLESPOST.CO.ZA @SAMANTHA_LEE121
T
ires, plastic, TVs and even a bathtub have been pulled from the Big and Little Lotus rivers in a mass community cleanup assisted by the City of Cape Town. The initiative is driven by the Friends of Zeekoevlei and Rondevlei (FoZR) with logistical support from the City and the False Bay Nature Reserve. Cleaning commenced on Monday 15 June in line with National Environment Month. Within the first week, the clean-up crew had already extracted more than 250 bags of rubbish. Tom Schwerdtfeger, FoZR deputy chair, says the catchment area of the Zeekoevlei area – which extends to Cape Town International Airport, Gugulethu and Athlone – is huge. “During the lockdown period, litter continued to pour into the canalised river system, creating an unprecedented amount of litter that under normal circumstances would have been cleaned up in collaboration with all role players, the most important being the City of Cape Town,” he says. FoZR received funding from various parties, most notably from The Table Mountain Fund via the Cape Town Environmental Education Trust (CTEET). “This enabled us to get a team of 13 into both the Big and Little Lotus rivers. Approximately 10 truckloads of litter was removed. Due to funding constraints and the rise in the water level of the vlei after the good rains, work had to be suspended. We are actively looking for funding to continue this project,” says Schwerdtfeger. The mostly plastic yield also included bathtubs, dozens of tires, three bed bases, 11 mattresses and more than 30 back cases of old TV sets. The work is being carried out by City workers as well as 10 workers who are being paid through the funds raised by FoZR from the groups who make use of the Zeekoevlei. FoZR committee members and residents Sidney Jacobs and Schwerdtfeger spearheaded the initiative to clear the waste which had built up against the litter restraining fences at the outlets of the two rivers into Zeekoevlei ahead of the winter storms. “The fences were under massive strain
EL ED RE
from all the litter, which included smaller items such as chip packets and plastic bags, and then larger items such as tyres. Once the big rains came, the fences were in danger of collapsing. All this rubbish would have ended up in the vlei and, ultimately, in the ocean, endangering the lives of countless animals,” says Schwerdtfeger. “Now, with help from the City, we have been able to repair and reinforce these fences and are looking forward to the installation of further measures very soon, which will further assist in keeping all this rubbish out of the vlei.” Jacobs, who is the FoZR chair, thanked Abdulla Parker from the City’s stormwater department for his remarkable efforts in helping to organise the clean-up. “The environment and our whole community are eternally grateful for the work that has been done and we look forward to a longlasting partnership so that the flow of litter into Zeekoevlei can be minimised. We are also grateful to the Zeekoevlei community for their support,” says Jacobs. Eighty percent of all plastic waste in the ocean originates on land and finds its way into stormwater drains and rivers where it is transported downstream into the ocean. In Cape Town, many of the rivers and canals are used as illegal dumping sites. Not only is this unsightly and costly to clean up but it presents health hazards to humans and wildlife. Schwerdtfeger says FoZR is driven by the motto “the greatest threat to our planet is the belief that someone else will save it”. “Our committee is dynamic and involved. Reserves within a big city are under pressure to be maintained in an acceptable state. It is up to all of us to ensure that our impact on these fragile systems is kept to a minimum,” he says. The Big and Little Lotus rivers (which have been canalised) feed into Zeekoevlei on the northern side and it, in turn, empties into False Bay on the southern side. Around 94% of all plastic and litter in the ocean come from canal and river dumping. In 2015, Zeekoevlei was awarded Ramsar status which means the wetland is internationally recognised as a “wetland of importance” by the Ramsar Convention and that the South African government has committed to protecting it in the interests of biodiversity.
Workers had a mammoth task clearing the Big and Little Lotus Rivers of trash. Zeekoevlei is home to Cape clawless otters, a wide diversity of bird species including a pair of African fish eagles, heron, cormorants, crested grebes, great white pelicans and greater flamingos, and amphibians such as the endangered western leopard toad, common platannas, and clicking stream frogs. The great white pelicans are near threatened. Zeekoevlei is also a well-loved recreational water body with more than twenty clubs making use of it for rowing and sailing. It is also popular for wind-surfing, water-skiing, and kayaking.
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Schwerdtfeger urges residents to be mindful of their impact. “Think before you dump. The cost of removing litter from rivers is 10 times more expensive as opposed to dumping on the side of a river – not that we endorse dumping of any kind. As a small example, we have recovered over 60 TV set backs in the Big Lotus river. “Law enforcement is following up on information of the repairs being carried out upstream and will be visiting the possible guilty parties in the coming weeks to put an end to the practice of throwing goods over the wall into the river,” says Schwerdtfeger.
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