Calls for donations after scary Umhlanga River pollution revealed
The Litterboom Project conservation group has started clearing out all the plastic waste in the Umhlanga River.
The Litterboom Project is a large-scale non-profit river interception programme that attempts to stop plastic pollution ending up in the ocean.
The conservation group aims to alleviate the increase in marine plastic pollution by targeting the river systems, instead of dealing with it only at the ocean.
As with most conservation groups, they rely on donations to assist the clean-up programmes.
To help get more people involved, the group has pleaded with members of the public for donations to help employ more clean-up teams. This comes after a major clean-up took place in the Durban North areas of KZN.
This accumulation of rubbish has been building up for the past three years or so. Three years ago we had a similar situation in that exact spot where the rubbish bottlenecked there. It was about the same scale we have at the moment. The river runs through Waterloo, Ottawa, Blackburn, all north of Durban. We need to start working in these areas to alleviate the build-up, instead of waiting for it to happen and fixing disasters like this.
Footage of the amount of waste that has been building up was shared on their Instagram page. The recent heavy rains in KZN over the holiday period caused all the waste to build up in the river.
This is a build up of pollution that had been higher up on the river banks, which has finally had a big enough flush of rain to wash it all out. It all bottlenecked at this point, luckily, so we now have a chance to clear as much as we can before it finds its way to the ocean.
The Litterboom Project's Josh Redman asked community members to assist.
Donate if you can to help us clean up this mess close to Blackburn on upper Umhlanga River. The more staff the better. We are paying temp staff R200 per day so let's go. R200 donation can make a good dent.
It's a great time for us all to reflect and look at how we could assist and help either by raising awareness or getting actively involved, especially if we consider that 90% of marine plastic pollution comes from river systems.
Find out more about the work this incredible team is doing by visiting their website www.thelitterboomproject.com and click here if you would like to make a donation.
Thank you so much to Josh and his team for all the work they're doing to help clean up our communities - absolute heroes!
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