A litter boom on the Black River in Cape Town makes all the difference in stopping litter from entering the ocean, take a look at the success.
Cape Town, South Africa – ‘Help Up’ is an organisation that works to clean up problem areas that are littered or polluted by using pledges they receive from the public, to pay people that need employment. The people are paid to work on these areas for a few hours.
Help Up is managed by Georgia Mctaggart who gets stuck in with the people that help.
Each week the organisation shares uplifting and inspiring stories about the work they do. Two weeks ago Georgia Mctaggart and Werner Meyer had to wade through the Black River on Heritage Day to check on their litter boom.
A volunteer called to let them know it had come loose on one side. When they arrived, they saw it was still secured to the side. However, they saw something else that made them pause.
“We responded to concerns from a volunteer that our white boom (in the video you can see it’s effectiveness clearly) had broken free on one side. It was still secure. What we did discover upon arrival, is that a new boom is in the process of being installed by CapeNature.
Not only that, but they have started planting the banks chock a block with endemic flora!
And it’s not even my birthday! Thank you!”
Dream can come true! In the video, you can see a mommy duck helping her ducklings to cross over the new boom rope. Unfortunately, the new boom, once completely installed, will not allow for easy paddling for the ducklings. They are still too little to find their way under. We saw a family of confused Egyptian geese with their young trying to work out how to get across it in the fading light. Eventually, they walked right around the rope.
Probably muttering “these blerry hoomans” in goosehonkspeak.
We must always ensure that nature is honoured. As important as removing the plastic, sewage and hyacinth is, it is so important that we remember that we are not to break 3 things while trying to fix one thing.” – Georgia Mctaggart
Now they have three booms installed on the Black River, which makes all the difference when collecting litter and hyacinths. Their last clean up saw them collect a whopping 870kg of trash and hyacinth from the Black River Raapenberg site in just four hours.
You can find out more about Help Up and how to get involved here.