Earn rewards at river clean up
Run out of airtime or data? Or crave a movie night?
Well, now you can get free airtime, data, movie tickets and more by simply helping out at the Liesbeek River clean up held the first Saturday of every month.
The monthly, community driven project has partnered up with an organisation called Going the Extra Mile (GEM Project), which rewards people for doing good deeds.
Charmaine Smith, Obs residents and co-organiser of the Liesbeek river clean up, said that the clean up is listed as an event on the GEM Project App.
People who attend the river clean up can receive 30 gems, which is equivalent to R30, and trade those gems for airtime, data, electricity, movie tickets or shopping vouchers on the App.
All gems are valid for 30 days and the App even allows users to gift gems to other users.
Charmaine said she hopes the GEM Project incentives Obs residents to join the river clean ups because it is important for the community to take ownership and contribute to maintaining the Liesbeek River.
Kari Cousins, Obs local and the other organiser of the event, said that while the Friends of the Liesbeek's (FoL's) maintenance team does a great job, their core function is not picking up litter.
"Their focus is planting and ecological rehabilitation of the river. They do a litter run once a week but that is anywhere along the 9 km of the river. So it is important that people take charge of picking up their own muck," she said.
The Observatory river clean up started more than four years ago by resident Ricardo Sa, it was later facilitated by another resident Sybrand Strauss.
Now, Kari and Charmaine have taken over the organisation of the clean ups. "When Sybrand left we continued with it because I think it is an important initiative’ it is an amazing resource for all of us and part of having a resource is maintaining it," Kari said.
The river clean ups are dependent on volunteers and sponsors to contribute to paying three of the FoL's maintenance team members on the day.
Kari said the FoL team members know the river and they provide a stable core for a Saturday clean. "It also means that a proper litter run is done. For safety, they really know the river and the people that live on the river."
Each clean costs about R900 and on average they collect 60 municipal bags of rubbish from the river.
Charmaine said the most common waste they pick up is chip packets, sweet wrappers, polystyrene take away containers, cups, cigarette butts and discarded clothing.
The occasional mattress, broken electronics and strange metal off-cuts are also among the rubbish they pick up. She said the weirdest and funniest item she's found during a clean was a discarded adult toy just "floating in the river".
Kari said besides picking up litter, the clean ups are a great opportunity to socialize and have fun.
"People come from all over. It can instil a sense of civic duty by involving children."
They will be having a stall at Streetopia and will be selling raffle tickets in order to raise funds for next year's clean ups. But they are ideally looking for long-term corporate sponsor to fund the clean ups.
The next clean up is Saturday, 2 December.
Donate to: Nedbank, Pinelands Branch. Branch code: 104709, Acc Name: Friends of the Liesbeek, Acc no: 222 001 5644, Acc type: Savings. Reference: TRASH