Cleaning our roads for World Environment Day
The South African National Roads Agency (Sanral) and Kruger National Park (KNP) both launched initiatives on World Environment Day on Monday to highlight the impact littering has on the environment.
MALALANE – It is staggering to see what people just throw out of their vehicle windows and what that litter amounts to. On World Environment Day on Monday, Sanral and the KNP highlighted the impact litter has on the environment.
Sanral stated that collecting mountains of trash along the roadside has become their responsibility.
They reported that in the last year on average, the following amounts of trash were collected in various areas (in cubic metres):
• Maputo – 937
• Moamba – 442,5
• Mbombela – 705
• Schoemanskloof/Elands Valley – 810,3.
The litter is collected once or twice a month and disposed of at the nearest registered local municipal landfill site.
Across the country, some strange items have been picked up by Sanral’s routine road maintenance staff. This included plastic bags with used nappies, bottles with urine and animal carcasses. Fast-food wrappers, boxes and soft-drink bottles are the most common litter items.
Ms Mpati Makoa, Sanral’s environmental manager, urged people to stop littering. “If you throw away a piece of litter each day, it can become a veritable mountain of rubbish by the end of the year. It also poses a threat to public and ecosystem health, as it ends up in water systems, impacts aquatic habitats and clogs up culverts and bridges. This, in turn, increases the frequency and cost of infrastructure maintenance.”
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The KNP, in partnership with Total SA, held a Keep Kruger Clean campaign at Welverdiend, a village outside Orpen Gate on Monday. “This year’s theme, ‘Connecting People to Nature’ encourages human beings to cherish the close relationship they have with nature. We need various species of flora and fauna in their original state for them to maintain a healthy and balanced environment,” said the acting KNP managing executive, Ms Lucy Nhlapo.
Various stakeholders, including learners from the KNP’s neighbouring communities, were invited to help collect litter in the areas outside the park’s entrance gates.
Some of the KNP and Total SA’s awareness initiatives include handing out awareness materials like brochures and refuse bags to guests when they enter the park and nature conservation programmes like Walk and Learn on the Wild Side.
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Motorists should keep a plastic bag for refuse in their car. The filled bag can be deposited in a trash can at their destination or at filling stations along the way.
