HARTIES CRISIS: Thank you Randburg!
HARTBEESPOORT – Thanks to the generous donations of the Randburg and wider Johannesburg community, a gigantic net can now be floated on the dam to help with the hyacinth problem at Hartbeespoort Dam.
Thanks to generous bottle donations from the Randburg and wider Johannesburg community, a gigantic net can now be floated on Hartbeespoort Dam to help with the hyacinth problem.
The community and schools came together to collect bottles to make a net to clear the water hyacinth infestation.
Two four tonne Caxton trucks were filled to the brim with about 12 000 bottles which were donated by the community.
The bottles were then delivered to the Hartbeespoort Dam Rehabilitation Steering Committee on 27 November.
Rudi Joles of the committee praised the community’s efforts and said, “The Hartbeespoort Rehabilitation Steering Committee and the residents of the greater Hartbeespoort applaud the efforts of the Randburg community backed by the Randburg Sun in collecting an excess of 12 000 empty 2L bottles.
“To date, this community-driven project has successfully removed in excess of 140 hectares of hyacinths off the dam which calculates to 50 per cent of the hyacinth initially present at the start of the project in April.”
A massive green container that had been placed at the entry to the site to contain donated bottles was filled to its capacity after Caxton volunteers unloaded the bottles.
This collective effort from the Joburg community is going to make sure that the dam environment is protected.
Randburg Sun would like to give a special thanks to the schools in the area who did an amazing job to drive support for this effort.
Curro Aurora Primary School collected more than 1 000 bottles, Newton House School collected more than 1 650 bottles and Avenir Private School collected more than 400 bottles.
The bottles will be used to make buoyant nets which will be used to trap the hyacinths and then specialised removal equipment will then clear the areas systematically.
Joles said, “The involvement of the greater Randburg community shows that active citizenship is alive and well and we invite these members of society to further their actions by making a financial contribution no matter how big or how small to the cause in order for us to be able to conclude the project before the end of this year.”
Details: www.hrsc.org.za; www.hartiesfoundation.org.za
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