Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis is leading by example in a bid to clean Cape Town streets.
On Wednesday 2 February, Hill-Lewis launched the Keep Cape Town Clean campaign in the Town Centre, along side solid waste staff, local councillor Solomon Philander and Mayco member for Urban Waste Management, Grant Twigg.
The campaign will be implemented across the metro in a bid to encourage cleaner communities and discourage dumping.
“Over the course of the next couple of months, I invite every Capetonian to join me on this campaign in various parts of our beautiful city and do their part too to Keep Cape Town Clean Together,” says Hill-Lewis in a statement.
At the event launch, he said the number of staff needed to clean up all litter, would be 10s of thousands.
“The City cannot do this on our own,” he says.
“We have to rely on people taking a sense of responsibility and pride to make sure that they don’t litter, and that if they see someone else litter, that they (tell them to stop).”
He continued that it should also be taught to children, so that the cycle of illegal dumping can be broken.
In the January adjustment budget, the City allocated R5 million for the City-wide clean-up campaign.
“Residents deserve clean communities and I hope that with a consistent education campaign we can turn the tide and change behaviour,” he says.
More than 180 000 tonnes of waste is cleared annually from illegal dumping hotspots, city-wide. Illegal dumping costs the City more than R300 million, and this is why a sustained focus to change behaviour is so vital, he says.
Hill-Lewis says the City has also ramped up its enforcement, with dumpers receiving hefty fines. He says they hope to implement a reward system that encourages residents to report illegal dumping.
“It’s going to take months and months of getting the message out there. It will take time to get the message out there, but we will,” says Hill-Lewis.
Twigg says: “We are going to clean the city. With this project, we are going to do many other projects. One of these is to involve the community. Many times we tell the community ‘don’t’, but we want to involve the community so they can help clean-up.”
He adds that the city is the best city in the world.
“We are always getting accolades, saying we are better than others, but then we must also be the cleanest city. These programmes that we will roll out will be to achieve exactly that.”
Cleaner streets also boosts tourism and visitors wanting to come back to the Western Cape, he says.
“Keeping our city clean is a high priority because a clean space creates openness and opportunity,” says Hill-Lewis.
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