THE First Cowies Hill Air Scouts group and their Pack Scouter, Jennifer Strachan, delivered a large collection of Ecobricks to the Beachwood Mangroves Nature Reserve on October 5.
Sifiso Luvuno, Green Corridor’s litter-boom co-ordinator was on hand to accept the Ecobricks which are destined to be used for litter booms in the reserve. Luvuno guided the pack through the swamps to the current litter boom located in the park and demonstrated how the boom functions.
Luvuno told the air scouts that everyone must take care of the environment and that small actions had an accumulative impact on eThekwini’s water quality.
The conservationist said, “You must love the place where you live and put litter into bins. Dispose of rubbish properly so the place can be clean. When in a car, don’t litter as it goes into stormwater drains, which then goes into rivers. We must all play our part to save nature.”
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Pack Scouter Jennifer Strachan said the meerkats, cubs and scouts in her group had collected the Ecobricks, along with learners from the Deutsche Schule Durban, over the previous two years.
“You take all the plastic you accumulate in your household and pack it tightly into 2l cooldrink bottles. We’ve been working with Green Corridor to supply bricks to make litter booms in the lagoon and river, which will stop the rubbish from going into the sea.”
Ecobricks are widely used in construction and for numerous other purposes. An Ecobrick is a 2l plastic bottle that is packed tightly with dry, non-recyclable materials. Green Corridor has 21 litter booms in Durban currently, which use Ecobricks in their construction.
Strachan says there are three categories of scouts – air, land and sea – but they are mostly the same.
“They are all the same basically, although we do focus more on air activities. We might have air-travel-specific excursions to Virginia Airport to teach them about planes, but all the scouts are brothers and sisters, whether you are air, land or sea scouts.”
According to Strachan, the World Organisation of the Scout Movement (WOSM) is a confederation of more than 170 national scout organisations with more than 50-million members worldwide, who follow the same programme across the globe. Strachan says that the scout movement teaches many things that are not part of the school curriculum.
“Scouts are taught about teamwork and survival skills for an outdoor environment, such as camping, knotting and how to make a fire safely without burning the house down. They are taught about the environment, why the ecosystem is important and why we should care about the environment,” says Strachan.
The First Cowies Hill Air Scouts meet at the Cowies Hill Community Hall every Friday night, and the group accepts children between the ages of five to seven (meerkats), seven to 11 (cubs), 11 to 18 (scouts), and 18 and above (rovers). Strachan’s pack is on the lookout for adult leaders and members of all ages.
Enquiries: Jennifer Strachan at 083 362 3817.
