Locals dedicate their time to help clean up Diepsloot

World Clean-Up Day on 19 September saw many residents and NGOs pull together to beautify a plot of land located by the pedestrian bridge near South Avenue in Diepsloot.

With water running through the piece of land, rubbish had piled up in the area after months of dumping. Among those volunteering to clean up was councillor of Ward 95, Matlale Mphahlele and secretary of the Diepsloot Residents Association, Akim Zulu.

Cara Stokes, who is the spokesperson for Armour (Action for Responsible Management of Our Rivers) organised the clean-up alongside other NGOs in and around Diepsloot. She spoke on how eager children in the area were to help out with keeping the land clean since it would be a safe haven for them to make it a makeshift football ground. “We’re also fighting for water. Both water and waste are closely related, so we’re doing the waste clean-up to protect the water,” she explained.

“Another aim we have is to make this area a safe place for children. We can maybe put up goalposts made out of eco-bricks and maybe put a bench just so that the area does not become a dumping site again. “We will be having a meeting soon in order to try and combat the solid waste problem. We want to find out the core problems, and let’s try and solve those problems.”

Organisers of the clean-up who are also part of the Cetric Foundation, Patience Chuene and Karabo Rakgoale, said they saw the need for all the rubbish to be collected as they stayed very close to the site. “The reason we came up with the clean-up is in order to make it a park for the kids considering the nearest park is actually really far. It’s not safe for them playing here on the street or near the contaminated water,” Rakgoale said.

Both also mentioned that something similar would be done in different areas of Diepsloot. Pikitup trucks collected the bags of rubbish collected by volunteers. Mphahlele said the persistence of Chuene and Rakgoale to better their areas was amazing to see. “I said to them they should start with a cleaning campaign as they wanted my help at first with handing out food parcels,” she explained. “I said to them that I will join them once things get started.

“Everything went well at the first clean-up, and I said we should continue. By having this clean-up, we are able to see all of the issues in the area we had not seen before, so it’s a good thing.”

The general feeling among all who volunteered was that more education needed to take place, which is what most NGOs at the clean-up are aiming to provide in the future. The education of proper care for the environment is firstly aimed at children to pass onto their parents.