Filming the latest Get Connected with Braam episode was really quite disturbing for me. It’s about Re-cycling and I needed to do a bit of research which saw the crew and I at one of the municipal dump sites, Vissershok, just off the N7. We drove to the highest point of the dump, over 60m above the level ground below. I was literally standing on a mountain of garbage! Statistics from the City of Cape Town’s audit of the site are staggering! Between 2 and 2 and a half THOUSAND tons of human waste is dumped at the Vissershok site DAILY! And there are 1200 sites in South Africa!
Standing next to one truck, I watched about 2 tons of waste being tipped. More importantly, at least 2 thirds of the refuse was recyclable! Most of us simply chuck our muck in the trash can at home, push the wheely bin out once a week for collection and think it’s just gone away … well, in reality, there is no ‘away’.
Chief Seattle put it well when he said “Continue to contaminate your bed, and you will one night suffocate in your own waste.”
All over the dump site were hundreds of pelicans. They come here for easy pickings compared to the harder work of fishing. Unfortunately, many die from contaminated food. Just another result of human over-indulgence.
Please folks, let’s all Do One Thing and recycle!
