Inner City - Education

As part of the Executive Mayor`s Clean and Green campaign Pikitup has commenced with environmental education awareness aimed at residents, traders, commuters, taxi operators and hawkers in the inner city. The intentionis to address various waste management issues afflicting the CBD, and surrounding areas such as illegal dumping and incorrect use of waste bins. Residents are for instance being made aware of collection schedules and the importance of putting your bin out on the correct day for collection. They are also reminded about what can and cannot be put into their 240 litre waste bins.

The main objectives of the campaign are :

- to create environmental awareness amongst the communities of the inner city

- to change peoples behaviour with regards to littering and illegal dumping

- to make people aware of the cost involved to keep the city clean

To meet the demands of the campaign, the company has appointed 25 environmental educators - their main focus being to influence the behaviour of people in the inner city who persist with illegal dumping and littering. The programme, which will be run over the duration of the Clean and Green campaign, make use of personal interaction to ensure that messages are clearly understood and that the required support is obtained from the target groups.

What makes the campaign even more rewarding is that it contributed to job creation in that the trainees were chosen from the areas in which the campaign is conducted. Names of possible candidates were provided to Pikitup by ward councilors responsible for the inner city and surroundings. Many names were received but eventually, due to budget constraints had to be narrowed down to 25.

The candidates undertook a week long training session facilitated by Pikitup afterwhich they were sent into the field.