This year the National Arts Festival will have the greenest Village Green ever seen. The Transnet Foundation’s Village Green has made new advances in recycling, waste management, and arts-environmental
education.
This year the National Arts Festival will have the greenest Village Green ever seen. The Transnet Foundation’s Village Green has made new advances in recycling, waste management, and arts-environmental
education.
This year’s theme is Where is away? which asks the question, where is ‘away’ when we speak of throwing rubbish away?
Transnet’s answer to this is the Greening the Green Strategy, an integrated waste management and environmental education programme that has been developed and designed specifically for the National Arts Festival and the Grahamstown environment.
It is partly also to create a waste management system to support the National Waste Management Strategy (NWMS) and the local Cacadu District Municipality’s Integrated Waste Management Plan (IWMP). The Village Green also focuses on the wealth inherent in healthy environments, taking steps to reduce our carbon footprint.
So the Village Green committee has developed a recycling plan working with local recycling initiatives employing and training informal waste collectors from the Grahamstown community.
In addition to recycling, the Village Green is also supporting up-cycling, (the process of creating new uses for old discarded items) by commissioning a large public artwork to be constructed entirely out of waste.
An incentive programme has been included for food stalls to use only biodegradable food packaging. And a waste water chute system has been developed, ensuring that waste water from food stalls can enter the main waste water sewer system and is processed safely.
For more information on the Transnet Foundation’s Greening the Green strategy contact Gerianne de Klerk on 071 364 16 86.
