A day in support of the spruit

Johannesburg’s waterways got some TLC on 19 October when residents across the city, including right here in the greater Fourways area, came together to clean them up for Spruit Day.

Spruit Day was started in 2013 and was created to encourage volunteers to clean litter and other waste out of the Braamfontein Spruit, a stream which runs through multiple neighbourhoods beginning in Northcliff and ending in Midrand. In Kyalami, about 30 volunteers gathered at the Gracepoint Church in Glenferness to begin their clean-up of the river behind the church grounds.

Along with environmentally-conscious residents, members of the Greater Kyalami Conservancy (Gekco), the Midrand Community Policing Forum and Gauteng Department of Agriculture and Rural Development’s river clean-up team and the Working on Fire team worked hard on the day.

This year, Spruit Day also fell on the same day as A Re Sebetseng, an initiative started by the City of Joburg to encourage residents to clean up their neighbourhoods.

“The importance of clean-ups such as Spruit Day is not just because they remove rubbish from the environment, but also the activation of residents to be more responsible in their daily life,” explained Kristin Kallesen, the chairperson of Gekco. “We decided that the earlier we start the better, and we’ll be here until about 11am.

“We’ve got two groups working on the clean-up, and they will be cleaning the area from Gracepoint Church up until Helderfontein.”

Besides being an opportunity to clean up the area, Kallesen hopes that Spruit Day will also make people more aware of issues facing the environment and work towards addressing them.

“The use of plastics [by consumers] is becoming critical, as we see from the pollution of oceans and other water sources. It is critical that we come up with solutions and government funding to address the problems.”

On the day volunteers cleaning up the area were provided with gloves, face masks and plastic bags to aid in their work. Annette Deppe, councillor for Ward 132 (which Glenferness falls under), was also present on the day and hoped that residents were inspired to do what they can to keep their neighbourhoods clean.

“I’d like communities out there to take responsibility for their neighbourhoods,” she told the Fourways Review.

“For those living in townhouses or complexes, I’d love to see you cleaning up in your areas – we’re all responsible for the areas around us.

“Also, if you can afford it, why not pay your domestic staff for an extra day a week and get them to do clean-ups of the environment like this? It’s a way that the middle class can help care for the environment, and I paid two of my household staff to help out today.”

The clean-up efforts in Kyalami started at 8.30am and went on until 11am.