Ryde Place gets a Madiba Day make-over

MORE than 70 residents spent their 67 minutes on Mandela Day (18 July) cleaning up the filth on Ryde Place and Malacca Road in Glen Hills.

The event was hosted by the staff at the Rivers Church Durban. Mosa Molwantwa, the organiser of the event, said they were thrilled with the turnout. “It has been absolutely fantastic. Lots of people from the church, the Democratic Alliance, members from within the community and even some of the residents within the informal settlement showed up and supported the initiative today. The problem area is on our doorstep and we are just hoping to improve the situation,” she said.

Dumping along Ryde Place and Malacca Road has, in recent months once again escalated out of control. Both of the roads have been littered with home refuse as well as rubble dumped by contractors.

When uMhlanga ward councillor Heinz de Boer visited the site in June he expressed outrage at the health risk the dumping posed to the community.

While the residents filled dozens of refuse bags on the day the amount of rubbish was just too much for the group of volunteers to eradicate. More work will have to be done to clear and maintain the site, said De Boer.

During the clean-up the volunteers found ID’s, medical aid cards and to a more horrific extent, several animal carcasses. One appeared to be a dog that had been tied up in a black bag before it was dumped at the site. Hundreds of metres of stolen and stripped copper wire was also found at the site.

However, despite the never ending piles of rubble the volunteers remained jovial and spent their 67 minutes honouring the late Madiba with pride.

See more photos here.