A volunteer picks up waste that is polluting the Hennops River. Picture: Hennops Revival/Facebook
The Hennops River, with its source situated near Kempton Park, Johannesburg, will be getting a new litter catchment system constructed and installed by volunteers of the Hennops Revival Project.
The Hennops River is one of South Africa’s larger river systems. Draining the province of Gauteng, the Hennops meets the Crocodile River which empties into the Hartbeespoort Dam. It is also one of Gauteng's most polluted rivers.
The Hennops Revival Project coordinator Tarryn Johnston, told a local news outlet that she hoped the catchment would be installed by the end of September this year before the rainy season began.
The litter catchment systems are specially designed to trap large and small pieces of plastic pollution and general waste which is washed into the river systems from stormwater drains or informal settlements, which do not have regular waste removal services.
According to Johnston, the Hennops is plagued by dangerous levels of pollution caused mainly by the dumping of industrial waste by factories and mining activities along the river. Establishing these litter catchments will play an important role in reducing the amount of pollution that the river is subjected to.
“It is vital that these catchments work, there is so much pollution and litter that falls into this river and without these traps, it gets completely out of control,” said Johnston.
Pollution from the Hennops joins more pollution when it flows into the Crocodile River which then empties into the Hartbeespoort Dam. The dam then collects tonnes of plastic pollution and debris, with most sinking to the bottom, barely visible to an onlooker from the shoreline.
Stefanie Ash, founder of Community Clean-up Initiative, a non-profit organisation which focuses on the revival and restoration of our natural resources, said that the “majority of litter washes down the rivers which feed into the Crocodile River and eventually find its way into Harties.”
Ash explained that tourists visiting the dam also contribute significantly to the pollution in the dam.
“We have a huge tourist problem. Tourists and visitors park along the dam wall and just toss their litter into the dam or onto the pavement which then blows into the dam. Huge efforts are being made by non-profits and individuals but not enough people are working together,” Ash said.
Johnston said that the installation of the litter catchment system is a major undertaking. “If we want this river to survive, we need to build the catchment to be as strong and efficient as possible,” she said.
In June, Action for the Responsible Management of our Rivers, another local non-profit joined forces with the Nanima Foundation, Fresh.ngo and the Alex Warriors, to install a similar litter trap along the Jukskei river in Midrand, Johannesburg, to help catch litter and stop it flowing down into the dam.
Willem Snyman of Fresh.ngo said that most of the trash caught in these traps is “carelessly thrown into the streams. Most people seem to be unaware of the consequences of their actions.
Some people have been led to believe that plastic vanishes, yet 90% of plastic is never recycled and ends up either in landfill or in nature.”
Current Affairs