Mail & Guardian reporter
A local NGO, Groundwork, has joined hands with two United States-based counterparts to introduce community-based air pollution monitoring systems in neighbourhoods that are located near industrial sites.
For the past three weeks the three organisations have been conducting awareness and air-pollution monitoring campaigns in the piloted areas of Durban South, Sasolburg, Secunda and Cape Town.
Groundwork has conducted workshops in these areas to provide communities with the simple yet innovative “bucket-brigade” method of taking air samples that are then sent to a laboratory to test toxic levels of the air in their neighbourhoods. The method utilises an ordinary bucket equipped with an air-bag, a pipe and a pump. A monitor is required to use a log-in system to record and track pollution incidents that would be published once the laboratory tests results are released.
Durban South has already established a committee to keep track of pollution incidents in the area. “Durban South is taking action immediately to expand air-monitoring efforts by gathering evidence of illegal and unhealthy pollution that threatens the health of thousands of children and adults everywhere we can no longer wait for government and industry to act,” says Desmond D’Sa of the South Durban Community Environmental Alliance. Following a two-day workshop conducted by Groundwork, residents went out on an “air patrol” through the South Durban area visiting the Sasol Fibers plant, the Shell/BP oil refinery (Sapref) and the industrial oil processing plants.
The group plans to publish monthly reports on air pollution and toxic releases in local papers to inform the community on the health threats.
Ardiel Soeker, Groundworks’s air-quality coordinator says the “bucket brigade” will reach thousands of families for the first time “so that they can demand clean air communities want to know what they are breathing and how to get corporations to clean up their act”. Soeker says the programme is expanding to a total of six polluted communities including Yonge Nawe in Swaziland and Livaningo in Mozambique “in direct response to the failure of industry and governments to monitor and clean-up toxic pollution that trespasses into fence-line communities”.
Last week residents of Zamdela township, outside Sasolburg, followed in the steps of their Durban South counterparts to establish a community-air monitoring system. Metsimalo ward councillor, Temba Mjikane, says the workshop laid the foundations for a cleaner environment for the township. Sasol sent representatives to the workshop a gesture that bodes well for a partnership with the surrounding communities.