With pollution rising with the world’s population, former Miss Earth South Africa Ella Bella is encouraging residents to do their bit to preserve the world by recycling, reusing and reducing things they use around the home.
Bella partnered with the City of Johannesburg, Pikitup and the London International School of Fashion (Lisof) in Blairgowrie on their #WasteStopWithMe campaign which encourages everyone to handle waste better.
Bella said that through the campaign, first-year university students were making garments out of recycled material that would be worn by the Miss Earth SA finalist at the pageant’s gala in September.
“They are promoting for residents to buy South African products that would boost the local economy. The campaign aims to make people aware of their waste footprint that they leave. It aims to tackle water waste, food wrappers such as plastic, and electricity wastage,” Bella said.
She highlighted the plastic wrappers that food is wrapped in and said that often the plastic used was non-recyclable.
“People must be aware of their waste and take steps to change this as a lot of plastic ends up in our oceans and we really should not treat the ocean as a dustbin.”
Bella provided the following recycling tips:
- Polystyrene takeaway packages can be washed and reused for guests
- Newspapers can be used to make envelopes
- Ice cream containers can be used to store toys
- Empty toilet rolls can be turned into a seed starter for planting.
Read: Recycling is easy
