A big clean-up led by volunteers cleared enough trash to compete with an 8-ton truck in just two hours in Pretoria’s Sunnyside!
Pretoria, South Africa (15 August, 2023)—During the past Sunday, about 90 ASEZ (university student volunteer group based on Church of God) members, their families and neighbours cleaned the 1km section of the Walkerspruit River flowing in Sunnyside, Pretoria!
Volunteers scattered all over the riverside and busily picked up various trash, including plastic cups and straws, plastic scraps, and waste masks. The amount of garbage collected in nearly two hours amounts to the equivalent of one 8-ton truck.
This is part of the group’s ASEZ Blue Carbon (ABC) movement which is underway all over the world in 175 countries; taking the lead in responding to the climate crisis.
The ABC movement is an activity to protect the marine ecosystem around the world to promote the importance of blue carbon in order to achieve carbon neutrality.
‘Blue carbon’ refers to carbon dioxide absorbed by marine ecosystems like salt marshes and mangrove forests. If you didn’t know, marine ecosystems are an important key to carbon neutrality because they absorb greenhouse gases up to 50 times faster than terrestrial ecosystems!
As many citizens know, there is a lot of illegally dumped garbage around the Walkerspruit River, so the clean-up made a massive difference for nearby communities too.
City councillor, Leon Kruyshaar thanked the volunteers for their efforts:
“I would like to thank ASEZ and it’s heartwarming to know that there are people that still care, and you clearly care”, he said.
ASEZ member, Tuelo Given Tapela, 25, who is also a student at the University of Pretoria, emphasized the importance of being united with the community and other government stakeholders.
“We wish to establish the ABC belt that is to preserve ecosystems in Pretoria. We need support from local governments and from other institutions such as universities,” she said.
In other recent news for ASEZ, they held the ‘Worldwide ASEZ Summit 2023’ in Korea last month where around 1,500 university students from about 500 universities in 40 countries gathered under the theme of ‘sustainable society and environment’ to plan climate change mitigation and adaptation, crime prevention, and global citizenship. The big win was ALSO adopting the ‘U500 (500 Universities) Joint Declaration for Human Happiness and Realization of a Sustainable Society’.
As of May 2023, governments, local governments, and institutions in 23 countries signed 151 agreements to support and encourage ASEZ, in response to the passionate volunteering of university students from all over the world so that the awesome work can keep on keeping on!
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