Waste stops with me
Within 46 years more than 1 billion people worldwide now participate in Earth Day activities each year.
IN recent months the extreme heat waves and devastating drought have been felt across South Africa in an alarming way. The impact of the life-threatening drought has and will continue to have a hard-hitting effect on the South African agricultural and farming landscape, with food prices skyrocketing in months to come.
For the first time, the everyday citizen now understands how the dots connect each individual to food, energy, water and ultimately the environment we live in. In 1970 the first Earth Day was held on April 22 after US Senator Nelson saw the damage done by the 1969 massive oil spill in Santa Barbara.
Within 46 years more than 1 billion people worldwide now participate in Earth Day activities each year. This makes this specific environmental day of importance the largest civic observance in the world, according to the Earth Day Network. Earth Day seeks to celebrate our environment and to raise public awareness on many different issues across the world. This year the Miss Earth South Africa organisation hosted a Twitter chat with the Earth Day Network in the USA, 48 hours before their 2016 Earth Day event hosted at Tsogo Sun’s 54 on Bath, in Johannesburg.
The organisation used this year’s event to launch its exciting 2016/2017 campaign, which will see this year’s finalists, ambassadors and winners engage in work on the ground, awareness campaigns and educational programmes in schools.
#WasteStopsWithME is a campaign which strives to promote and engage citizens across South Africa to understand the role that they play to be active and conscious citizens who consider their carbon footprint and their environmental impact and to reflect on the amount of waste they create every single day.
Finalists will engage with this theme as a core part of what they do. Finalists will also join the official #TeamUpToCleanUp campaigns hosted in conjunction with Pikitup and the City of Joburg as well as their own clean-up campaigns within their communities.
“We need to be more responsible for the life cycle of what we choose to purchase and consume. Waste must stop with me as a responsible citizen who is more consciously aware of the impacts of landfill sites and illegal dumping areas” says environmental education director, Ella Bella.
Mr Jacky Mashapu, general manager of the communication and stakeholder management department of Pikitup, said, “We are delighted to have partnered with Miss Earth South Africa to drive the City waste management agenda. We aim to help all communities to protect and preserve the environment by applying basic principles of waste minimisation: reduce, reuse and recycle.”
“We are a service provider activating school and community and educational projects and programmes, supporting the strategic goals of Pikitup through the Miss Earth South Africa annual leadership programme; incorporating waste as a theme for 2016/2017 and looking at the landscape of waste in our country with specific focus on how each individual, industry and corporate South Africa can make a difference to the waste paradigm,” said executive director, Catherine Constantinides.
Waste has been a major environmental issue the world over since the industrial revolution. Besides the waste that is created at home, school, in the workplace and public spaces, waste is also generated from industry, agriculture and in hospitals.
Follow the finalists’ projects, educational and awareness campaigns as well as the clean-up campaigns in the City of Joburg with Pikitup.
*Information supplied by SA Fusion.
