In a bid to stop littering and illegal dumping in the Mother City, the City of Cape Town called on residents and community organisations to join its #SpringCleanCT campaign.
Since then, the Cape Town Central City Improvement District’s teams in its Urban Management department have removed 1 225 tonnes of litter and illegally dumped waste from the streets in town to landfill, using an astonishing 184 330 bags. Teams also re-bagged 652 overflowing black wheelie-bin bags and cleared 37,513 kg of debris from storm water drains.
These clean-up initiatives were recorded during the past financial year from 1 July 2021 to 30 June 2022 and were celebrated at the CCID’s 2022 Annual General Meeting, where CEO Tasso Evangelinos stressed that tackling unwanted litter and illegal dumping was a priority and contributed towards creating a successful and welcoming downtown for locals, visitors and investors.
Kally Benito, CCID Urban Development Manager, says retaining the CBD’s desirability as an investment destination continues to be the driving force behind the CCID’s efforts to curb littering and illegal dumping.
“Illegal dumping, graffiti tagging, cigarette-butt litter and waste that spills out of torn litter bags remain the biggest challenges for CCID Urban Management. That said, downtown Cape Town is still one of the country’s most well-kept CBDs, which speaks to the department’s ability to overcome these obstacles in collaboration with its partners, namely J&M Cleaning Services, Straatwerk, as well as the City of Cape Town,” she says.
CCID MAKES A CLEAN SWEEP
Last year saw the CCID’s Urban Management teams introduce a range of clean-up initiatives as more and more people returned to the post-pandemic CBD.
One of these initiatives included establishing litter-picking teams of 15 workers contracted via Straatwerk, one of the CCID’s NGO partners. In this job-creation initiative, teams are deployed Monday to Saturday between 08h00 to 17h00. In addition to this service, Urban Management also deploys six Special Response Team members from Monday to Friday to pick up litter on the immediate border of the CCID’s footprint to ensure waste matter and litter doesn’t get blown into the city centre.
The CCID also has 37 professional daytime cleaning teams deployed daily via J&M Cleaning Services between 07h30 to 17h00 and 16 night-cleaning teams deployed daily between 20h00 to 05h00.
The Urban Management team also introduced a Broom Brigade between May and June 2022 in St Georges Mall, its side streets and on the Golden Acre block to combat litter in high pedestrian areas.
This has proved a huge success and is ongoing and will continue until the end of the 2023 financial year, says Benito. The teams clear waste in Adderley, Strand, Plein, and Darling streets and successfully complement existing Urban Sweeping teams.
COLLABORATIONS AND INNOVATIONS
Evangelinos says 2022 led to great partnerships between its operation departments and the City of Cape Town, which helped it support the Mother City’s efforts to promote the CBD as a destination of choice that’s clean, risk-free, and hospitable. One of these partnerships is a night-time cleaning operation between the CCID’s Safety and Security department and its Urban Management teams, with assistance from the City’s Solid Waste Management Department.
Using existing resources to reduce the impact of illegal dumping, Safety and Security members patrol the CBD with two Urban Management sweepers, collecting illegally dumped litter and handing it over to Solid Waste at night at a specific time and location.
Litter in highly pedestrianised areas such as St Georges Mall was also addressed with the introduction of additional sweeping teams – dubbed The Broom Brigade – to cover St George’s Mall and the Golden Acre block.
“Keeping the CBD clean has always been an expensive task. Even back in 2019, the department spent R30 000 per day to clean the CBD, amounting to an annual spend of R11 million. This spend was in addition to the standard removal of waste, which includes litter and organic matter such as leaves, twigs, and soil, by the City of Cape Town. The cost is much higher now.”
Thankfully, this investment in clean-up initiatives, like the 305 cigarette-butt bins we’ve strategically placed in the CBD, is proving effective. We removed 682.5 kg of cigarette-butt litter from these bins last year alone,” says Benito.
In addition to the CCID’s cigarette-butt initiative, the department’s investment in cleaning up the Mother City also resulted in the removal of 1,112 illegal posters, 7,128 kg of debris from municipal drains, and 1,200 kg of waste from channels.
MORE SHIFTS TO COMBAT LITTERING
CCID Urban Management bolstered its clean-up efforts during the recent Festive Season by introducing additional cleaning teams and extra shifts for litter-picking and cleaning. These shifts started in December 2022 and will continue until March 2023.
The CCID’s Urban Management team still facilitates the daily removal of illegally dumped litter from public spaces. The waste truck of service provider J&M Cleaning Services collects the waste from 18h00 to midnight daily and hands it over to the City’s waste truck.
“Once again, the CCID has shown what we can achieve through teamwork. We, therefore, want to thank our incredible cleaning and maintenance partners who’ve helped us keep the CBD clean night and day. Despite the increasing numbers of people entering the CBD daily, our collective efforts have successfully removed masses of illegally dumped waste and reignited the public’s interest in our beautiful CBD,” concludes Benito.
Issued by Atmosphere Communications – A part of Accenture Song on behalf of Sharon Sorour-Morris, Communications Manager of the CCID.
