Activists remove 940 bags of waste from Hennops in two days

Hennops River activist Tarryn Johnston and her team have removed about 940 bags of waste from the river in the past two days.

Johnston said as the level of flood water continues to subside following the recent heavy rains, they will be able to remove more litter from the river.

“The water level has dropped substantially and all the litter has gone under the bridge. That’s what we expected. As the water level drops more and more of the litter will go through,” she added.

The river activist said once they remove all the litter from the river, they will then sort it from plastic to polystyrene.

“We are going to turn this bad situation into a good one by recycling whatever we can. We must do it quickly before we lose it all and goes back downstream again.”

Johnston said during last year’s floods, they managed to reduce the amount of litter coming into the river significantly as they had installed litter traps.

“This was prevented last year because we had a litter trap in place. We removed 13 000 bags of waste that did not make it through the river until the trap broke in February,” she said.

She said that the organisation’s work wouldn’t have been possible without the help of community members Joanne Bezuidenhout, Hannlie van Niekerk and Sybil Duigan who contributed funds towards the cleaning programme.

Johnston said the organisation needed financial resources to continue its work.

“We are going to need a lot of funds to clean up the river, and we are asking for help from the community.”

According to the Hennops Revival’s website, the organisation has collected 2 046 920kg of trash, 95 697 bags and 3 053 volunteers have joined the cleaning effort since November 2019.

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