Pollution in rivers an eye-opener for pupils

When it comes to pollution, we cannot always blame the authorities – we have to look at our own behaviour too.

That was the word from Zwartkops Conservancy spokeswoman Jenny Rump, who last week coordinated a five-day education programme for 340 pupils and 10 teachers, focused on the apparently innocuous but environmentally devastating problem of littering.

Funded by Ford Global Giving through the Port Elizabeth Ford office, the programme dovetails with the International Coastal Cleanup, with which the conservancy is also involved and which runs through this week, overlapping with the same littering issue.

Rump said the R65 000 tranche from Ford was donated to teach schools about the Swartkops estuary and not to pollute it.

It was also for cleanups and for the renovation of two classrooms in the old Jabavu High School building for the conservancy to use as an office and eco-education centre.

So last week, using some of this money, conservancy teachers Patricia Ntabeni and Wandisile Lukwe took busloads of pupils and their teachers, 60-plus at a time, first to the estuary mud flats and then to the outlet of the Motherwell Canal.