Masupatsela

ILITHALOMSO
DIRECTED and EDITED by TINA-LOUISE SMITH
TX 26th July 2010

Ilithalomso (the light of dawn in Xhosa) is a non-profit organisation that was formed by the members of Masiphumelele and Kommetjie in 2003 in response to the unnecessary build-up of non-recyclable and recyclable rubbish on local beaches. The Ilithalomso recycling project is one of many projects under the KEAG (Kommetjie Environmental Awareness Group) banner.

Community members came up with the idea to turn waste into something valuable while creating employment opportunities at the same time. Different teams work on the project, fulfilling different roles: the team of beach cleaners collects the waste for recycling at the Ilithalomso headquarters in Kommetjie; back at the base, another team sorts the rubbish according to the materials and then washes the rubbish.

Ilithalomso has created employment for numerous community members and one of these people is Yandiswa Mazwana. Yandiswa grew up in Tsomo in rural Eastern Cape where she was always close to nature and dreamt of pursuing a career in geology or tourism. Money was tight and Yandiswa was not able to pursue studies in either of these fields, but when she ended up in Masiphumelele in Cape Town, she got involved in community organisations, which led to her involvement in environmental work with KEAG.

Yandiswa finds her work at Ilithalomso highly rewarding as it allows her to be close to nature and to work for the benefit of her immediate community and for all of us. Yandiswa’s responsible spirit means that she is in charge of  Ilithalomso, but she still enjoys work on the beach far more than she does the office work.

TO CONTACT OR CONTRIBUTE TO ILITHALOMSO OR KEAG:

Call 021 783 3433.

IF YOU AND YOUR COMMUNITY WOULD LIKE TO REDUCE, REUSE AND RECYLE PLASTIC WASTE IN A WAY THAT CREATES JOBS, THIS IS WHAT YOU NEED TO DO:

1. get an artist on board to help you come up  with some ideas for products

2. research these ideas to make sure they will sell and create employment opportunities for locals

3. set up an NPO

4. conduct market research around product sales

5. through your networks let people know about the products you have for sale

6. try to expand your market to overseas clients.

FULL CYCLE
DIRECTED by JANE KENNEDY
EDITED by JEMIMA SPRING
TX 26th July 2010

Mary Murphy’s passion is something the most people turn their noses up at – solid waste management. This started during a drive through the Karoo as she travelled between Cape Town and Johannesburg, when she saw plastic bags littering the landscape, miles from any settlement. She started by becoming involved with a campaign around plastic bags with the then Minister Vali Moosa and is now the self-proclaimed “PR person for earthworms.”

Earthworms, you ask? According to Charles Darwin, “It may be doubted whether there are many other animals which have played so important a part in the history of the world as have these lowly organised creatures.” And Mary and her fellow eco-entrepreneurs at Full Cycle would be the first to agree. There are thousands of different types of earthworms – the ones we find when digging in our gardens are earth-turners, that literally plough the soil. But it’s the ones that are known as composting worms that are the true trailblazers of this story.

Few people are not aware of global warming and greenhouse gases – and most people associate the latter with emissions from cars and heavy industry, primarily carbon dioxide. But there’s another huge contributor to greenhouse gases – and that’s the organic waste – left over food and vegetable peelings that are thrown onto landfill sites every day. Ordinarily these would rot into the soil and be taken care of as part of a natural process, but on landfills they are compacted, starved of oxygen and as they break down, produce methane gas which has an even greater negative impact. Not only that, we will soon be in a situation where we will run out of space for rubbish dumps – it is thought that in Cape Town we have 5-6 more years at most.

So what is the solution? Composting earthworms are nature’s answer to organic waste. The eat the waste, neutralising harmful bacteria, add loads of beneficial bacteria and pass out vermicompost – a highly nutritious soil conditioner. If you have a worm farm at home, you can process most of your organic waste at home and use the end results, the vermicompost and worm tea (the liquid that comes off) to fertilise your garden. You can make your own worm farm – there are many different designs, from using old tyres or other containers with a drainage opening, or buy a specially designed systems, like they sell at Full Cycle.

These systems don’t only work in a domestic situation, but have been put to the test at places like the Mount Nelson Hotel and Spier Estate, where large scale waste management systems have been set up that take care of tonnes of waste per month. Waste that would have ended up in landfill sites producing methane gas and contributing to global warming. Instead it’s going back into the natural cycle where it belongs.

Through their entrepreneurship and outreach initiatives, this knowledge is spreading into previously disadvantaged areas. Phumlani Dlongwana, who is the site manager for Full Cycle, has set up a worm farm in Masiphumelele. He uses it to teach youth the 3 R’s – reduce, reuse and recycle – as well as to fertilise a garden which feeds a soup kitchen for the kids who come the Sosebenza Youth Centre, where he is based.

TO FIND OUT MORE OR TO CONTRIBUTE TO WASTE REDUCTION:

There is a wealth of information on worm farms on the internet – but a good place to start is www.fullcycle.co.za. They can be contacted on 021 789 29 22. So go on and give it a go!

SOME TIPS FOR STARTING YOUR OWN WORM FARM:

1. you need to get “red wiggler” worms from someone else with a worm farm or a nursury

2. you can use any waterproof container including old tyres, as long as there is drainage to collect the worm tea

3. give the worms something to hide under – like old newspaper (this also increases the carbon content of the vermiculture)

4. keep the worm farm out of direct sunlight

5. be careful not to overfeed them – they eat their own body weight a day and 1000 worms weigh 250g, so match how many worms you have with how much food you feed them each day