Walk 4 Waste

December 7th and 8th marked a new beginning for GVI South Africa and community/conservation involvement. Over the two day period staff and volunteers worked side by side picking up litter and recycling from the side of the dirt road leading up to Mariepskop mountain while wearing homemade shirts and showing off a snazzy banner to create awareness of the rubbish problem in the area.

The whole idea for the walk came from the creative geniuses of the mountain staff, Jen and Kaggie (intern), who travel the road every Monday and Friday with volunteers during their Mountain Phase and were concerned about the large amount of trash they passed each week. “We started by just picking up the litter around our camp in the mountains and along the roads we travel during the week, but every time we travelled back to Karongwe via the Klaserie1Stop we would cringe with the amount of trash,” says Jen. Taking matters into their own hands they began organizing a clean up project involving everyone at GVI Karongwe and companies such as Pick ʼn Pay (a local grocery shop) to help sponsor and support GVI in the initiative. What started as a small project eventually grew due to the help of drinks and bin bags from Pick ʼn Pay, an article in Kruger 2 Canyons (the local newspaper) and GVIs very own advert on Jacaranda RMfm (the local radio station, very popular, for those who don’t know).

Despite the rain, all in all GVI had 8 volunteers, 4 staff and one very kind writer from Kruger 2 Canyons on Tuesday the 7th, collecting 42 recyclable and 15 non-recyclable bags along the road, while only walking 4.1 km! On the 8th there were 7 (also wet) volunteers, 5 staff and one GVI Regional Director, allowing us to add 25 recyclables, 29 non-recyclables and 4.4 km to our list. Thus, the total for the first ever Walk 4 Waste ended up amounting to 67 recyclable bags, 44 non-recyclable bags and 8.5 km! The road leading up the mountains is 17 km long, so about half of the road has been cleaned, but this only allows GVI and Walk 4 Waste to continue with this conservation project into the new year. Who knows? With the right help and volunteers we could soon clear the entire area, put in proper bins along the road and continue to make a positive difference both to the human and animal communities that we live and work with every day.

Walk 4 Waste