After sending in his initial letter ‘A wheelie’ messy idea‘, Nick Rautenbach writes:
We sometimes complain with good reason about the negative things in our lives, however, if we want those complaints to make an impact, it is very important to, at least sometimes, follow up with acknowledgement for the positive that comes out of it.
I want to express my sincere gratitude to Northcliff Melville Times for posting my complaint: A ‘wheelie’ messy idea.
I am confident that besides many careless residents, there are people in Sophiatown who inherently care and don’t need encouragement or opinions like mine to do the right thing.
If genuine care, pride and consideration for people and nature will help people to sleep well at night, then I’m sure that the following people are some of the few who should sleep with pride in their warm hearts:
Poppie Van Rensburg (an owner and member of the body corporate of the flats in Sophiatown Park), assisted by Eugene Seefort (tenant of Sophiatown Flats), Abednego Karim and Professor Nkomo, who took it upon themselves to roll up their sleeves and get their hands dirty by cleaning up the huge pile of rubble on the corner of Milner and Tucker streets, built up over months by other careless, inconsiderate residents.
Unfortunately, there is still a lot of rubbish piled up inside the storm drain but due to poor response, I have given up on calling the municipality years ago.
The number of people who are committed to being on the lookout for culprits who dump their rubbish on the streets has increased.
People still take their bags out of the wheelie bins, regardless of the degree it contributes to the mess in the streets.
I personally had to throw it in the Pikitup truck, otherwise, it would be left behind and by now shredded and spread all over. I would like to know whether they can be fined if I pointed them out.
Thanks again to Poppie and friends for their noble effort to clean up a mess that should not occur if all people had healthy minds.
They even shovelled away the weeds and grass that started to overgrow the rubbish pile. When I approached them, I recognised the same frustration and embarrassment I deal with each time I clean up.
I’m not sure if they cleaned more spots around the flats in Sophiatown Park, but they probably did. The fact is that their action demonstrated real pride considering the rubbish was not dumped there by flat tenants nor was it their duty to clean it up.
I certainly hope their approach rubs off on more people.
Hats off to them! They give me a glimmer of hope that sense may sometime prevail in humankind. It’s not about what you have in life, but how you try to live that makes a difference.
