SANRAL has made routine road maintenance (RRM)
a key focus since 1992. Because roads deteriorate
over time, RRM is essential for the preservation of
road conditions through various contractors. This
keeps SANRAL roads and pavements around the
country in good working condition.
RRM preservation activities applied to the national
roads include:
• Pavement maintenance
• Drainage maintenance
• Roadside maintenance
• Traffc signs and other road furniture
Litter collection is part of routine maintenance activities.
Along the N12, for example, from the Northern Cape
border to the Gauteng border in Potchefstroom, some 3 000m3
of rubbish were collected between January and June this year.
Gertrude Soko, SANRAL Project Manager for Operations
& Maintenance, said: “Litter collection along the N12 is
administered through three five-year contracts, benefiting 15
people employed by these contractors on a full-time basis.”
SANRAL’s RRM programme is aimed at empowering small, micro
and medium-sized enterprises. This also presents sustainability
op-portunities for small businesses, contractors and engineers
nationally to manage the RRM in their local areas.
Although costly and time-consuming, cleaning up the national
roads in the country has become a crucial part of what SANRAL
does. Close to 10m3 of litter are collected per day; in some areas this
is done on a monthly basis or every two months at the beginning of
each month. An emerging subcontractor is appointed for each section
to conduct RRM, including litter collecting. The litter is disposed of at
registered local municipal landfill sites along routes in each region.
“It is just astonishing what and how much people just throw out of their
vehicle windows, with little regard on the impact it has,” said Mpati Makoa,
SANRAL’s Environmental Manager.
On a regular basis, staff collects fast-food wrappers, boxes and soft drink
bottles on national roads, which are typical litter. Other times the routine
maintenance crew is surprised by some strange items they pick up, including
nappies, bottles of urine and animal carcasses.
“If you throw away a piece of litter each day, it can become a veritable
mountain of rubbish by the end of the year. Millions of rand are spent just to
clean up litter that many people have thoughtlessly tossed out on the streets and
other public spaces,” said Makoa.
She said that it also poses a threat to public and ecosystem health, as it ends up
in water systems, impacting aquatic habitats and clogging up culverts and bridges.
This increases the frequency and cost of infrastructure maintenance.
It is important to educate communities so that they understand that by throwing
litter on the road they can indirectly cause crashes. People need to stop littering and
report it when others do it.
THE Department of Environmental Affairs invited SANRAL to partner with its Green Schools programme. The aim of the partnership would be to create green jobs and environmental sustainability through collaborations between schools, recycling, buy-back centres and entrepreneurs in waste management.
Green Schools is an international initiative founded by the Foundation for Environmental Education (FEE). Their aim is to empower students to implement change through engagement in socially responsible learning. The initiative operates in over 40 countries internationally, and over 1 000 South African schools are currently registered to ensure
environmental awareness and responsibility is taught at all levels in all cultures and places. The programme is curriculum-based and supported by the national Education Department.
Regional green school coordinators ensure that learners are taught environmental skills appropriate to their environment and community. Projects initiated by Green Schools include: water-wise food gardens, energy saving measures such as solar cookers, cleaning up pollution and designing posters.
The inaugural South African Green Schools Programme (SAGSP) was launched on 25 April 2017 in Polokwane. This was a pilot
programme implemented by Deputy Minister of Environmental Affairs Barbara Thomson and Limpopo Economic Development, Environment and Tourism MEC Seaparo Sekoati.
The purpose of the initiative was to raise awareness about the issue of environmental degradation, which can be changed through “embracing sustainable measures of harvesting environmental resources to create a legacy future generations can inherit”.
The Deputy Minister prompted learners to become environmental ambassadors and said that caring for and protecting our environment has to start at a young age.