Coke accepts Glenashley man’s clean-up challenge
Shocked by the state of the river mouth following last week's torrential rains Richard McLennan challenged Coca-Cola Beverages SA to assist with a clean-up operation along the Durban beaches.
GLENASHLEY resident Richard McLennan is on a mission to eradicate litter from the uMngeni River. Shocked by the state of the river mouth following last week’s torrential rains the 42-year-old turned to Facebook where he challenged Coca-Cola Beverages SA to assist with a clean-up operation along the Durban beaches.
“Besides the loss of lives, damage to homes, schools and roads we have also seen our rivers spilling huge amounts of plastic waste into our oceans. A lot of this waste is actually your empty bottles,” he wrote on Facebook.
Soon the beverage giant responded to his appeal and rose to the challenge.
On Saturday, while the massive #CleanBlueLagoon initiative was underway at the Beachwood Mangroves and along the beach at the uMngeni River mouth the beverage company had rallied hundreds of other volunteers to the right of the Blue Lagoon pier. Among the volunteers were over 70 children from a school in Inanda.
Following the success of the clean-up the former Northwood School pupil said he was determined to ‘sort out the river upstream’.
“I have heard people complaining, saying ‘people should stop throwing things into the river’, but it is more complicated than that. Informal settlements are overburdened with rubbish that is never collected and with each set of heavy rains all that waste is washed down the river,” he said.
McLennan added that the problem involved a lack of sustainable recycling, education, adequate waste collection as well as sustainable products. He said he planned on mobalising various roleplayers to ‘help fix the river’.
“It is absolutely amazing. We were expecting about 200 people, but there are easily over 300 people here today. We have done several clean-ups at the site. So, when we saw Richard’s appeal we were thrilled to come on board. The decision was a no brainer,” said Nosihle Mthethwa, the public affairs and communications manager for Coca-Cola Beverages SA.
Mthethwa said the company was aware of other organisations facilitating recycling initiatives upstream, but added that it was not enough. She said they would be investigating ‘structured’ and ‘intense’ sustainable options and education programmes.
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