Stronger together is obvious, but how does that translate into action? Last week, after the rains, there was a call out for a beach clean-up at Sunwich near where I live. I know this happened up and down the coast; thank you.
A few people gathered on Tuesday morning and spent an hour making a visible difference, leaving the beach clean – I thought. On Saturday afternoon, another clean-up had been planned, and the group of over 30 walked from Banana Beach to Sunwich, where I was stationed armed with recycling bags as requested for those who just wanted to clean their area and not do the walk. I was astonished to see how the clean beach from Tuesday was full of garbage again.
The struggle is real. Most of the rubbish is washed down the rivers and out to sea and deposited again on the beaches, a really sad indication of the waste generated by our consumer society. Plastic hasn’t really been around for so long, and yet it’s become an enormous problem. It’s not only that the areas inland are ‘bad’; they most likely have no ‘waste collection services’, and therefore few options are available, basically ‘burn’ or ‘bury’… both are toxic non-solutions.
After our urban experience of no waste collection from October, I think we should all have a lot more understanding of how difficult and unpleasant life is under these circumstances, which is the daily reality for the majority of our people in RNM. Our Constitution promises the right to a ‘clean and healthy environment’, and this has not been delivered. What can we do?
Hold the municipality to account. The Green Net is aware that a zero waste system was presented to them in 2017. How is it possible that no decision-maker saw the benefit of jumping on board immediately? Ignorance is not an excuse when your mandate is to provide the best service for the population to which you are responsible.
There’s a saying: “It will be alright in the end; if it’s not alright – it’s not the end”, and I sincerely hope that forward-thinking folk within the structures start looking at the many positive possibilities that exist within our community to change the trajectory of our beautiful area going forward.
PS: after sorting the collection, it was mainly cold drink bottles and polystyrene, lots of sucker sticks, toothbrushes and earbuds. There are biodegradable options – be aware of your shopping choices and try to reduce the quantities you buy/produce – everyone can make an impact.
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