The Department of Water and Sanitation (DWS), in partnership with several stakeholders, gathered to clean Besterspruit on July 30 as part of Mandela Month.

The DWS came up with the Clear Rivers Campaign to encourage people to adopt and clean rivers and other water resources to ensure the sustainability of clean and quality water.

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Dudu Sifunda, the provincial head of the DWS, said: “Water is life and without water we cannot survive. The purpose of today is to bring environmental awareness to the communities and to ensure that the environment is clean.”

When we look at our rivers, they are very dirty. Some community members throw trash anywhere you can think of, but today we dedicate 67 minutes as a department together with the Inkomati-Usuthu Catchment Management Agency [IUCMA] to clean our rivers.

“When we go out there, we want to teach others that rivers are not a place to throw dirty things, because some people depend on them as a water source. This Clear Rivers Campaign assists us in ensuring that we keep our water clean,” said Sifunda.

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Speaking to Lowvelder, the chairperson of IUCMA, Linda Carol Zulu, said: “There is a lot of life in our rivers. Even human life depends on them.

The most import thing is to ensure that the quality of water required for human consumption and agricultural industries is maintained.”