Umtamvuna Views: Recycling depot gets a fresh new look

Residents and visitors are to rinse out and sort items and not to deposit organic waste at all.

October 10, 2019

PHILIPPA MAKEPEACE 3 minutes read

Local women (from left) Jenny Grant and Beryl and Theresa Brereton added a routine to their exercise programme - 'net-pulling'. This very heavy, tangled fishing net washed up on Port Edward's main beach and they removed it.

RESIDENTS have suffered and complained for many months about the condition of the recycling depot behind the library in Port Edward. Last weekend a group of locals decided to have a work day to rehabilitate the site.

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Port Edward and Banners Rest Ratepayers’ Association (PEBRRA) bought the materials and received donations from local businesses. Kobus and Jason Welgemoed of ‘The Handyman’ did the repair work and a handful of generous locals, including our friendly ‘trolley man’ Nhlanhla, worked hard at cleaning out receptacles and surrounds.

Thanks also to Shereen Sheppel of Recycle for Africa who arranged a special collection to clean out the place. Residents and visitors are asked to please use this area responsibly, to rinse out and sort items and not to deposit organic waste at all. Well done to all those that helped to beautify this site. Please let’s keep it clean and tidy.

What goes around

A Marina Beach resident is incensed by the apparent travesty of justice. Names cannot be mentioned for legal reasons. She was driving her Hyundai Getz, southbound towards Port Edward on February 26.

As she passed the intersection at Munster, a hefty double-cab bakkie went through the stop street without stopping (on the inland side) and ploughed straight into her driver’s door, pushing her vehicle some 10m onto the road’s shoulder.

The driver of the bakkie got out of his vehicle, looked at her, offered no assistance and then fled the scene with a family member who fetched him after a phone call. He appeared to have suffered minor, if any, injuries and required no hospitalisation. She was assisted by local passers-by.

Emergency services were soon on the scene where they took an hour to cut her out of her car and she was then transferred to hospital by ambulance. As luck would have it, the other driver was also waiting in casualty at the hospital and his details were obtained.

She spent a week in hospital with five broken ribs, a fractured pelvis and had to use a wheelchair for almost three months. A few weeks later she was readmitted for a further four days for severe chronic pain management and still suffers from pain and post-traumatic stress disorder. A case of negligent driving and hit and run was opened.

She telephoned the SAPS detective in charge every week for six weeks to keep abreast of the progress.

Six months after the accident and all the follow-up phone calls she was told the case had been thrown out because it was deemed ‘not serious enough’.

Understandably she was furious and has continued to push her case because it has cost her about R400 000 to date. It took almost five months to locate the perpetrator in order to serve him with papers for financial compensation.

Call it karma or retribution, but late last Friday night, a bakkie went out of control in Port Edward, veered off the road down a bushy embankment and ploughed right through the precast wall at GP Security. The driver was given a breathalyser and found to be driving under the influence. He was taken to jail in Port Shepstone.

Incredibly, this 52 year old man was the very same driver who almost killed her six months earlier and she believes this man is a serious threat on the road. He apparently has a long standing history of alcohol abuse and yet is still behind the wheel.

She commented “This person needs to have his licence revoked and should be sitting in jail before he kills someone. There is no sense of remorse and there has been no change of behaviour since the first accident.”

All news to Philippa.