Rubbish Reigns

And here it is again. The view of our neighbour's personal dumping ground. I should have added a big warning sign for sensitive viewers.

I pay BRACe (the Buccleuch residents action committee) every month so that they can work towards the betterment of our suburb. That's what they're set out to do. Yet I have not had any responses to my queries about what they will try to do about it.

I have been paying the City of Joburg every month for 23 years and I'm still trying to work out what for. I separate and recycle everything that can possibly be recycled. It takes me a month to fill up one small shopping bag of rubbish, but I pay for refuse removal just the same as every one else with rubbish spilling out of bins onto the pavements.

And my neighbours? What excuse do they have for causing what is much, much more dangerous than a mere eye sore. They have none, and still no one cares.

67km Jukskei River Cleanup

12 Years of SOUL

The SOUL Foundation (Save Our Universal Lands) has dedicated 12 years to restoring the endangered rivers of Africa back to health.This year, with WET-Africa (Waterway and Environment Transformation), they have committed to rescue 67km (42 miles) of the Jukskei River from its source in Bertrams, close to Ellis Park, Johannesburg, to its confluence with the Crocodile River.

67km for 67 years.

No mean feat. Nurturing 67km of a desperately ailing river back to health could be akin to the strive and struggle of one man's campaign for the rights of every South African. The WET-Africa Flagship 67 is the beginning of Kim Keiser's 12 year struggle for support and funding to clean up the environment, specifically through our waterways. When I first heard about this project my trusty laptop nearly went flying as my head made its way to the ceiling.


My Personal Fight

If you don't already know, I live across the river from a neighbour who uses the Jukskei as their dumping ground. Their despicable daily and weekly acts of carrying trash down to the banks of the river is soul destroying. For more than three years I have not been successful in putting a stop to this. Almost every available organisation or body has been subjected to relentless telephone calls and emails from me to approach these neighbours, who act in the most un-neighbourly fashion with numerous other unlawful acts, to stop polluting the river with their waste.

Contacts the Metro police, City Parks, The River Rangers, City of Joburg, and finally BRACe (The Buccleuch Residents Action Committee) have so far all been in vain. I know that I can ask a donkey to drink, but I can't make him drink. Humans are not donkeys. We can make them drink. By raising the pointy finger, flipping a fat fine at them, add a few months in jail, sorted. But we flap and flail backwards and forwards with excuses and passing of the buck, whilst in the meantime, the river sucks it all up.


A Holistic Approach

This is why my laptop nearly went flying. Not because the river was getting some useful attention, or even that it was getting real funding from the Clinton Global Initiative, to boot, but that SOUL has taken a grassroots approach to a universal problem, in turn creating hundreds of jobs and eco-enterprises.

Cleaning up the Jukskei is one thing, keeping it that way is another. Education is key, involvement with community is another, but the most exciting of all is the establishment of ongoing activities and developments into the future.

Eco-Enterprises

Recycling and establishing buy-back centres
Vermicomposting
Eco-agriculture
Bridle paths
Cycle paths
Walkways
Adventure activities
Eco-tourism
Tented camps
Eco-shop
Restaurant
Farmers market
Food, fruit and herb gardens
Medicinal plants

I'm sorry, I just have to say it: it's my ultimate WET dream.

Joburg - an improved city

I was compelled to write this blog when my hubby, who was in Cape Town that weekend, expressed shock and disbelief when I told him how the regular Sunday church noise has finally been taken care of.

Let me take a step back:
We live in an old northern suburb of Jozi. We, like most people, whatever class or LSM they belong to, have neighbours. We like to think that we live in civil society where we exercise consideration and respect for eachother. (I choose to ignore the issue of road manners, for that is a sore topic in itself.) Yet, there always has to be the 1% who somehow don't feel the need for sublime neighbourliness.

So our neighbours, bless their souls, decided one day to erect a full-blown church of sorts, on what they thought was their property. The poor thing had no roof or window panes for about a year, it looked like a house whose layers of bricks were laid in a big hurry, and then just abandoned in mid build, as if the builders were fired for horrendous workmanship.

But of course this was not the case. The builders were jostling around in that same building with no roof and no plaster preaching and singing hallelujah every Sunday without fail. Dedicated. Dedicated to the lord of noise was more like it. In fact, our heavy metal devil worship music couldn't drown that lot out.

Yes I love music too, I love it so much everytime there's a beatty rhythm playing in a coffee shop or supermarket, I immediately go into breakdance mode. I struggle to really describe the kind of cacophony that rudely explodes into our space, like a criminal, uninvited and without warning, stealing our privacy, and escalating our heart rates. So much so that we couldn't schedule anything at home during that time from 10:30 to 13:30. It was 3 hours of intense insanity. Drum kits should really not be sold to anyone without a licence and BMus degree. For 3 years it went on like that. And then one day it didn't stop. It carried on until the early evening and I thought, no more Mr. Nice guy.

Just to set the record straight, we were not pathetically grumbling to eachother and not taking any action. After having simmered over to our neighbours and politely asking them to turn the volume down on those megahertz monsters, we had - oh, say a month with some calm before the real storm. New gigahertz giants. In the calm month, we could still hear the furious drummer, we could still make out the words of the enthusiasm lead singer, though we understood nought, and the spurs of hallelujahs that ended off every song like drunken fullstops were quite clear - but at least, glory hallelujah - they were softer.

Don't bother with Metro police, because you will be told to report it to a station, where you will be given a reference number. But they will not actually come and do anything about, until you report it 3 times and get 3 reference numbers, and only then perhaps will they come and assess the situation. But also maybe not.

Imagine sitting in a room where everything is serene and there is some distracting music in the background but you manage to drown it out with the TV or the radio, and then suddenly one day that dreaded music is right in your room, almost strangling you. Gigahertz giants can do that. And that's when I called the Department of environmental health.

I was told to email the details, along with an affidavit, and within one week Mr. Jan van Niekerk called me to say he had assessed the situation. That weekend I waited with bated breath. The clock struck 10:30, 10:40, 11:00. A bird chirped, and then another, the soft trickle of water flowing, aahh ... pure, beautiful bliss.

So that's the story, but as I said in the beginning, I was compelled to write this account, simply because no one seems to know what avenues to take when it comes to noise pollution and environmental health. Nowhere on the internet will you find the names and numbers these valuable contacts, but I have them, and I treasure them like another woman will treasure her hairdresser.

For issues on noise pollution, river pollution, dumping, etc, contact the Department of Environmental Health in your region.

From Jukskei River to Dumping Ground

Once upon a time, right on this property where I sit and type, there once flowed a beautiful, clean river. It's waters was home to fish, ducks, geese and many birds, where residents of old would sit on its banks and have Sunday picnics with friends and family.

There are Strange Things in that Jukskei

It happened around the early 1970's. The mindless dumping. From plastic bags to cardboard boxes to car tyres to cars themselves. Occasionally a domesticated animal floats lifelessly past while rodents the size of cats thrive and breed. And the sewerage. Are you sufficiently depressed yet?


River Cleanups are a Waste of Energy

Every now and then Joburg City in partnership with other organisations and NGO run little week-long campaigns to clean up the river. Even if the campaign lasts 100 weeks, how much difference do you think this makes before its back to square one? Give me a break. The key lies in awareness; not in gumboots and rubber gloves. Save your energy, picking, pulling, carrying to and fro. Think long term and use the funding to train educators.


Education is the Answer

Granted, there is an all-round lack of basic services in Alexandria so residents are inclined to use the river as their dumping ground. And this is where the core issues need to be addressed. It's not about Don't Litter, or Save the River, the fundamental truth is that across the baord, we are a consumerist throw-away society. blindlessly striving towards the great American Dream in some way or another. If we were only to shift our perspective on how to begin to solve the atrocities of past and present sins, then by all means, pull those carcasses out of the river, but more urgently, address the root of the problem, and the answer to the problem lies in educating the 3 R's, Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.


Apathy for the Environment is Punishable by Death

But basic services and the lack thereof cannot be the excuse for everyone. Here's one example: There is a house with peeling pink paint that stands on the banks of the Jukskei in a Northern suburb of Johannesburg. Every so often a man carries a pile of rubbish down from his house and throws the rubbish into the river. In the Winter months when the water level is low and the river flows slowly, the rubbish merely tumbles down the side of the bank, accumulating as the weeks go by, until eventually the man sets the pile alight and a tower of blue-grey smoke rises into the atmosphere. True story.

We are extremely good at conjuring excuses up for our laziness. This did not occur in a township but in a suburb of Sandton, where refuse removal is the weekly norm, where a recycling centre is but 10 minutes away, and gardens are big enough for a substantial compost heap. So, give me a break and don't try and plead poverty either.


SOUL Angels on the Horizon

I shall not be boring you with the long and winded 10-year old story with the City of Joburg, Metro police, City Parks, River Rangers and the like. Instead, I will be leaving you with the knowledge that there is a glimmer of hope on the rippling water of the Jukskei in the form of WET Africa, and SOUL Foundation. Watch this space.