A happy moment for the volunteers of the KwaZulu-Natal Integrated Greening Programme, in Willowfontein and Sobantu, as they reap their rewards for their hard work.

The KwaZulu-Natal Integrated Greening programme began in on the 1St of April 2011 as a result of KZN Premier Dr Zweli Mkhize vision to keep the environment clean and simultaneously helping the needy. This resulted in the Private Public Partnership programme led by the Office of the Premier involving KZN Public Works, Wildlands Conservation Trust, Agriculture, Environmental Affairs & Rural Development, Economic Development and Tourism, Human Settlements, Msunduzi and eThekwini Municipality. The KZN Public Works’ role here is that it coordinates the programme in the province, leading other participating departments and the private sector.

This is how the Programme works: Volunteers collect different kinds of recyclable waste materials from around their neighbourhood, this may be in a form of bottles, plastics, paper, cardboards, etc. These items are placed in bags and stored at the storage warehouse situated in the area. Once they have completed the collection, Graeme Farley, the project manager from Wildlands Conservation Trust, will then set a date to weigh all the bags which after the weight size per bag will equal a specific amount of money which serve to benefit the volunteers who are called “waste-preneurs”. All participating volunteers are given what is called a ‘credit note’ which is a piece of paper stating how much is the rand value of the waste that they have collected. They can then choose what they want to purchase with money earned, most volunteers choose groceries but some will request the payment of their children’s school fees.