This week is South African National Clean-Up and Recycle Week and about 35 pupils from Westlake Primary School’s eco club, armed with gloves and plastic bags, marked the occasion by picking up litter in their neighbourhood on Monday.
Angela Raynardt, from Mpact Recycling, helped organise the clean-up. “Through having this event today, I want to make sure that schools are recycling,” said..
Mpact has donated a paper recycling paper bank to help Westlake Primary raise funds and also helped it create a partnership with Fiera Milano Exhibitions, a company that runs exhibitions, conferences and events and which has agreed to donate all the paper it collects to the school to support its fund-raising recycling efforts.
The school hopes to win another City of Cape Town Environmental Trust (CTEET) medal, after it won a bronze one last year, shortly after the eco club was established by teachers Wilma Feeke and Nolan van Vuuren.
“This is our second year running, and we are very enthusiastic,” said Ms Feeke.
“We started the club in an effort to promote environmental issues,” said Mr Van Vuuren.
Mrs South Africa finalist Shelley Loots gave the pupils a hand with their clean-up. “I want to make a real impact on the community.
“For me, any contact I make with young people makes me feel like there is hope for the future,” she said. “To see them so hopeful and enthusiastic is just great.”
Pupil Michelle Madede, 13, said: “It’s important to keep our communities clean”.
Mpact is encouraging the community, including local office workers, to support the school and its paper bank fund-raising lifeline.
“There is still so much they (the school) need to do such as a tennis court, a swimming pool. So the more paper they can get, the more we can contribute to the school. Some people don’t realise that there is value in a piece of paper,” said Ms Raynardt.
