MEDIA ALERT: MASS RIVER CLEAN-UP TO BREATHE NEW LIFE (AND HOPE) INTO KUILS RIVER CATCHMENT AREA

MEDIA ALERT 9 FEBRUARY 2023

 

“MASS RIVER CLEAN-UP TO BREATHE NEW LIFE (AND HOPE) INTO KUILS RIVER CATCHMENT AREA”

Pupils from Mfuleni Technical School are gearing up for the mass river and wetlands clean up in Mfuleni and Makhaza on Saturday 18 February, in an effort to bring hope to communities in the Kuils River Catchment area.

Several community groups are gearing up for a mass river and wetlands clean up in the Kuils River Catchment at locations in Mfuleni and Makhaza on Saturday 18 February.

The Kuils River Catchment system runs through many Cape Town communities of different economic classes and flows through different land use activities that leave it polluted and harmful to those who live alongside it, particularly downstream. 

According to the Environmental Monitoring Group’s (EMG) Siya Myeza, “Our work along this river presents an opportunity to explore and expose the systematic environmental racism that results in many low-income communities living in environmentally harmful conditions that undermine their quality of life and livelihoods. The mass clean-up will focus on specific parts of the river where community interaction with the river is the highest. These areas used to be vibrant economic hubs before Cape Town’s drought dried up all the opportunities. But the water situation has improved since then, and these communities need improved services and support from the City of Cape Town, to make this a reality.”

Myeza says that communities have organised themselves to clean up a section of the river that is nearest to them. These are primarily areas where illegal dumping – due to the lack of waste management infrastructure and sanitation services – pollutes the river.