PLANS are in motion to educate communities against littering and dumping.
According to ward 33 councillor, Nicole Graham, this issue has become a real problem in the community. Councillor Graham, along with DSW and Glenwood Clean-Up members met to formulate an education waste management programme for the area, which will be implemented from 1 May.
“Hopefully, by educating and working with the public we will see the benefits to our community. This plan includes schools and businesses, as well as a bin audit,” said Graham.
The DSW Education Waste Management Programme for Glenwood and surrounding area, as it is called, is a comprehensive waste management and minimization education programme that seeks to improve the attitudes related to waste in the Glenwood community. The programme will cover educational institutions, religious institutions, malls, formal and informal businesses.
“The area has been invaded by vagrants, some of whom do informal recycling in a wrong way and DSW education will try to address this challenge. Illegal dumping activities occur n the area at an increasing rate every day,” said Graham..
The objectives of the programme are to ensure measurable waste management results and also to promote Clean and Maintain My City’s goals.
These include instilling a sense of ownership of the environment to Glenwood community, improving attitudes with regards to waste management and to improve the cleanliness level of the Glenwood area in comparison to its current status.
The programme will start from 1 to 8 May with school and pre-school visits, to conduct presentations to educators and learners on waste management and minimization, to do presentations during Environmental Week and to instill a sense of ownership and responsibility of the environment to the learners.
From 1 to 8 May and in the first week of June, there will be information disseminated at shopping malls in the area during Environmental Week.
There will be interaction with the public, raising awareness on the importance of living in a clean environment.
“We will do a door-to-door campaign with formal businesses from 11 to 22 May to inform businesses on the importance of sticking to the city’s bylaws with regards to waste management and we will also do a bin availability survey,” said Graham.
The next item in the programme takes place from 8 to 19 June where the group will identify dump sites around the area and refer them to DSW operations.
There will also be an concerted effort to create awareness on waste management practices, do door-to-door awareness campaigns to encourage residents to clean-up their areas, recruit volunteers for clean-ups and promote Adopt-a-spot/verge projects in an attempt to encourage communities to take care of verges.
These will all be ongoing projects.
“From 22 to 26 June we will be identifying cardboard collectors to encourage them to leave their sorting areas clean and do onsite visits with informal traders to encourage them to use refuse receptacles to dispose of their waste and encourage their customers to use bins. We will also be visiting religious institutions to encourage church leaders to involve themselves in environmental initiatives such as clean-ups and to encourage the congregation to practice a good waste management ethos,” said Graham.
For more information, contact Nicole Graham on 083 616 1936.
