Tshepo Mogole, a 34-year-old from Bekkersdal, has a plan to clean up the environment.

Tshepo is the co-founder and manager of the We Love Bekkies environmental campaign. He said this cleaning project was started in January 2019 with the aim of converting illegal dumping sites into registered waste- management centres and agricultural hub.

“I am the director of a project called Lively Project (Pty) Ltd, so we use equipment from that protect to make We Love Bekkies environmental campaign a success,” he said.

Tshepo said he works with 25 volunteers, and only 10 of them get stipends from the Rand West City Local Municipality (*Correction: The Herald has since established the stipends are from the West Rand District Municipality – Ed.). They work five days a week from 8am until 4pm.

“We lack support from the municipality.

We want them to adopt the campaign and involve us in local waste-management projects, and give stipends to all volunteers.

“We wrote letters to the mayor’s office seeking assistance with water and sanitation, but we got no response,” he said.

Tshepo added the only funding they have is from selling recyclables that they collect from dumping sites. The cleanliness of their area motivates them to keep on working every day.

“We are trying to create employment for ourselves through the initiative. I love working with waste and also taking care of my environment. I want to be acknowledged as one of the local waste-management heroes of a small, micro and medium enterprise,” he concluded.