In a corner of Joubert Park in Johannesburg’s inner city, a secret garden is blossoming.
“GreenHouse’s vision is to become a demonstration of green living,” says Dorah Lebelo, the executive director of the GreenHouse People’s Environmental Centre, an inner city environmental resource centre, as she walks past what looks like a metallic satellite, but turns out to be a sun-powered hot-dog stand attached to a bicycle, used to promote alternative energy sources. A staff member cycles the bicycle about the neighbourhood, selling hot dogs and popcorn cooked on the solar panel, to the amusement of passers-by, says Lebelo. The centre draws in community members who tend their own vegetable gardens grown in barrels and ears of corn spring up along pathways.
Earthlife Africa initiated the GreenHouse project in 1993 to support community-based environmental groups and to demonstrate environmentally sound development practices. In 1999, the project signed an agreement with the Johannesburg Metropolitan Council to use the area for an environmental centre.The old hothouse is listed as a heritage building, having been built in 1940 on the site of previous conservatories, the earliest dating back to 1897. Its eastern wing is being restored and there are plans to turn the other wings into an exhibition space or an organic café.
This week, a recycling centre will open for business, employing 15 people from the neighbourhood, who will receive three months on-the-job training and later take over the running of the centre. The start-up capital for the building and initial operating costs come from a R11,5-million poverty alleviation grant from the Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism.
At the moment people tend not to see recycling as a “real” job, says Lebelo, but she hopes that the recycling staff will turn the centre into a business. These 15 “champions of the project” will ride bicycles into the community, clad in bright yellow overalls to raise awareness about recycling and cleaning up the area, so that residents can see a visible difference. They will each encourage 200 households to separate their rubbish and make use of the recycling bins at the centre, provided by Sappi and Consol Glass, which will pay the centre for this waste. The project plans to involve supermarkets which will be asked to provide food vouchers in return for recyclables, as an incentive. “If it can be done, I think we’ll have a different community altogether,” Lebelo remarks.
The recycling centre is the outcome of partnerships between the GreenHouse Project, sponsors and the Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism in a novel cooperation model developed by the Soul Foundation, an environmental NGO. The project leaders say that a recycling centre is a critical part of a waste management programme for the city, not just for the benefit of inner city residents, but also to prevent our rivers from becoming clogged with garbage. Paper, cans and plastics littering the inner city are washed down the storm-water drains and into the river systems, degrading the environment hundreds of kilometres downstream.
Give and take
Freecycle Network, a worldwide recycling organisation, is fast gaining popularity in South Africa as a way to reduce dumping and avoid the proliferation of landfills full of non-biodegradable items such as computers and appliances.
The network, a grassroots non-profit movement, provides an electronic forum to “recycle” unwanted items. Communicating via e-mail, members offer unwanted household items to each other.
“The key word is ‘free’,” says Joy Coetzee, who moderates Ladysmith deals.
“If somebody accepts it from me, they must accept it as a gift.”
The network operates in 55 countries, at about 3 427 sites and has about two million members.
“It is huge in the United States and other parts of the world but in South Africa it only caught on last year,” said Malcolm Naidoo, moderator of the 50-member Durban branch.
Donors may specify that they wish their item to be donated to a non-profit organisation, and schools, churches and old-age homes are encouraged to sign up as members, to take advantage of this mushrooming network. — Kwanele Sosibo
For more information, log on to www.freecycle.org