The hype surrounding the Arts Festival is fading fast and only the clusters of rubbish along the streets and the odd clinging poster remain to remind us of Grahamstown's all-encompassing annual event. So who is responsible for cleaning up the mess left behind after all the festivities?
The hype surrounding the Arts Festival is fading fast and only the clusters of rubbish along the streets and the odd clinging poster remain to remind us of Grahamstown's all-encompassing annual event. So who is responsible for cleaning up the mess left behind after all the festivities?
Assistant superintendent of Makana Municipality’s cleansing section Pumzile Smile assured Grocott's Mail that the city would be back to normal in no time. "The municipality was working extra-hard to have everything cleared by Monday afternoon," he said.
Extra casual labourers hired to keep our streets clean during the National Arts Festival helped them to cope with the increased workload, “but we still have normal operations which have to be suspended,” he said.
Although these normal services had to be delayed, Smile said his department finds that people are normally very accepting due to the overall economic benefits of the Festival. Beside creating employment, there are other benefits to cleaning up rubbish left behind after the Festival.
“Rubbish ranges from stones to cardboard to plastic and other waste,” Smile said before explaining that each is sorted into its own group to speed up the process. “Sorting helps with those in recycling,” he said and recyclers are especially involved with the collection of cardboard.
“We gather the cardboard and send it to the warehouse where we bale it,” said Chris Smith of Grahamstown Recycling. Smith said from there the cardboard gets sent to the relevant places where it is needed. And once the rest of the waste has been sorted, Smile said it is loaded and taken to the landfill site.
And last but not least all posters and flyers on public walls and lamp posts must be taken down to help Grahamstown return to normal until the next Festival.
