Instead of complaining about the illegal dumping, a group of residents decided to get their hands dirty and do something about this problem. What the Joburg Community Bin project is achieving is unreal!
Johannesburg, South Africa (05 April 2022) – A simple idea to clean up the streets of Jeppestown is not only helping the environment survive but also helping the community thrive!
The Community Bin Project (CBP) started with the objective to assist low-income, high-density communities in and around Johannesburg with the huge illegal dumping problem on street corners. The team behind the NPO were hugely concerned about the environment, physical and mental health of community members, water and air pollution and the degradation of our beautiful city.
“Instead of complaining about the illegal dumping, we decided to get our hands dirty last year and do something about this problem, to assist the City of Johannesburg and uplift our communities. We believe that together we can bring about change.”
While CPB commends cleanup campaigns that communities and other initiatives are doing, the team have noticed that they clean “today and the garbage is back tomorrow”.
“We believe this is because they are not addressing the source of the problem but rather the symptom… the garbage on the pavement and illegal dumping. Together with educating the community, our approach is to address the source of the problem, which is that garbage needs to go into the bin.”
Attack the garbage problem at the source, and then we can put all the effort and budgets to better use… in repairing and beautifying the city.
CBP has been running 9 Proof of Concept sites in Jeppestown, Johannesburg CBD, Loretzville and Kensington, which has proven to be a huge success. They have also achieved a huge milestone: the education of the surrounding communities.
Education and information is a critical component to solving this problem. To achieve this, CBP has incorporated technology around the bins, including a motion sensor that activates several educational voice recordings in Zulu and English.
“We have the ability to change languages and messages. There is also a motion sensor light and a Wi-Fi camera to assist us in watching people’s behaviour and knowing when our bins are full and need to be collected.”
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