The inner city of Johannesburg is synonymous with grime, crime, litter, illegal dumping, waste that is found lying around the streets and open spaces.
This is exacerbated by the overflow of litter from formal and informal traders, residential accommodation, combined with transient areas, informal settlements, and hijacked buildings. However, volunteers that joined the Clean City South Africa Volunteers Network are changing the outlook of litter and waste in the inner city.
Sidanisile Ncube, a street trader and a volunteer with Clean City South Africa said, “I have been selling fruits and vegetables here in Hillbrow for many years. We are proud of our place of business, and for our customers to buy from us here. Since we joined the Adopt A Street Volunteers Network, we clean our area every Saturday morning.” Clean City South Africa volunteers have conducted 163 cleanup events, and collected 5115 refuse bags full of litter, since the launch of this programme on 5 September 2020.
“We are proud of the progress made by our team of volunteers that reside and trade in and around our three Adopt A Street Volunteers Network sites. Our volunteers take pride in their neighbourhoods and places of business. We are addressing the state of litter, packaging pollution and waste through the commitment of our volunteers that live, work, and play close to where they conduct cleanups every Saturday morning. We could not have achieved the success of this programme without the support of our partners and sponsors.” said Dalu Cele, CEO of Clean City South Africa.
Clean City South Africa held a Adopt A Street Volunteers Network Cleanup Event on Saturday, 12 February 2022 at one of its sites in Pretoria Street, Hillbrow. This event was aimed at raising awareness about litter, packaging pollution, its implications, and the damage to the environment, to collect and reduce litter on the block around Pretoria Street, Catherine Avenue, Van Der Merwe Street and Banket Street in Hillbrow, and to feed the community through the support from the Shoprite Mobile Soup Kitchen.
“Shoprite is always eager to support organisations such as Clean City that encourage community members to take the initiative to reduce waste in their communities,” said Group Sustainability Manager, Sanjeev Raghubir.
Shoprite has supported Clean City since its inception in September 2020 by donating gift cards as volunteer incentives as well as supplying refreshments for the cleanups. Clean City South Africa is a non-profit company that operates three Adopt A Street Volunteers Network sites at Pullinger Kop, Berea, Pretoria Street, Hillbrow and Pieter Roos Park, Parktown.