Over 100 residents gathered last weekend to clean up Wallacedene in Kraaifontein.
Residents of Wallacedene in Kraaifontein, fed up with rubbish strewn across their streets, have started to clean up illegal dumps and rubbish left uncollected by the City of Cape Town. In some areas, rubbish hasn’t been cleared for several months.
Over 100 residents gathered last weekend, divided themselves into smaller groups and set out, collecting anything from discarded electrical appliances to nappies and human waste.
Illegal dumping has become normalised and is carried on with impunity. Residents complain it has resulted in rat infestations.
The volunteers cleaned up a local park, where children could no longer play safely due to the rubbish piling up. They also cleaned up an area near Wallacedene Primary School.
The organisers of the cleanup said the campaign includes a drive to educate residents about the dangers of illegal dumping and to take responsibility for the waste they generate, because much of the dumping is household waste.
Ward councillor Siyabonga Duka (ANC) told GroundUp, “People do have dustbins but they continue to dump in open spaces. This thing of dumping rubbish on the streets is against good, healthy living standards. It affects our health and that of our children who play in these parks and open spaces. We will continue mobilising for clean environments.”
The campaign was co-organised by ASEZ-WAO.
GroundUp has attempted since 17 January to get comment from the City of Cape Town on enforcement against illegal dumping and rubbish collection in Wallacedene. Comment will be added when received.
Residents want to change the image of the township from filthy to one of cleanliness.
Residents of Wallacedene in Kraaifontein want the City of Cape Town to block access an illegal dumping site near their houses. They say the stink is unbearable.
Illegal dumping has blocked drains in Kraaifontein and caused filthy water to flood streets.
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Fun South African Fact: The Union Buildings in Pretoria are home to a larger than life Nelson Mandela statue.
Mr. Thanksgiving
The Man who could only Drink Milk
I know an old man who had lived a life full of adventure, but his health started to catch up with him. He\’d run the Boston Marathon, was an avid surfer, and climbed Everest, but he\’d started to have abdominal pains around his 85th birthday and went to see a doctor. Sadly, he ultimately was diagnosed with a rare degenerative liver disease that slowly made him allergic to everything he ate.
He kept copious notes, and as an avid gastronomist slowly grew to despair as everything he\’d spent his life enjoying became something he could no longer eat. Alcohol went first, then mushrooms, then bread, then root vegetables, then coffee, one at a time he had to remove them from his diet. The doctor was clear: if he kept eating something his liver rejected the autoimmune response would be quick and severe, and would lead to a painful death. Little by little, everything was taken away as an option, until the only thing that remained was milk.
In some ways, this actually made life easier, because the mental strain of remembering what he could and couldn\’t eat was gone, but then so was the joy in variety. But he took it in stride, and got his own cow and took classes from a farmer to learn everything he could about the only thing that could give him sustenance. And even within milk, he could still have yogurt, butter, cream, some cheeses, and other milk-derived products he hadn\’t fully rejected yet, so it wasn\’t all bad. But then one day a few months later he felt the pain again, and he knew cow\’s milk was no longer an option.
Lacking other options, he tried goat\’s milk, and he was delighted that it worked! The protein structure is just different enough that his body still tolerated it. That bought him another month. And that\’s when we came up with a wonderful plan to go on one last grand adventure around the world. If he could get one month of life out of the milk of every mammal, he\’d actually have a few more years to enjoy life to the fullest and see the world in all its beauty. Each month, we\’d pick a place with a new mammal, and he would immerse himself fully with the locals, learn all the ways to prepare the milk, and just enjoy the hand he had been dealt as much as he could.
We milked sheep in New Zealand. Camels in Egypt. Zebras in South Africa. Giant bats in Indonesia. Do you know how many Peruvian cuy you need to milk to get a single glass? I do. Even as his health slowly faded, he stayed cheerful, and I felt lucky to join him on the adventure of a lifetime. That brings us to today when he got to the very end of his spreadsheet, and declared that he was now allergic to every mammal. He\’d enjoyed his journey, but his time had come to an end, for there was nothing left to milk.
To which I said nonsense, I bet we can milk a few thousand karma out of this post.