PPE “deliberately” dumped in Hennops river
Tarryn Johnstone and her team of volunteer river warriors had spent more than a week clearing plastic waste and styrofoam debris choking a scenic stretch of the polluted Hennops River at the Irene Country Club. There was just one more day to go.
Then on Sunday morning, Johnstone, who runs the non-profit Hennops Revival, received a disturbing call: hundreds and hundredsof boxes of unused personal protective equipment (PPE) had been spotted floating in the river.
Blue gloves were spilling out into the river and on its banks, everywhere. For Johnstone, it was a disappointing turn of events, “especially since we spent nine days at the country club cleaning and working hard to make the river beautiful again, only to be met with this horrendous sight in the morning”.
That the PPE was deliberately dumped in the river is now the subject of a police investigation.
“Thousands of gloves have gone downstream – we will be picking them up for years,” she remarked.
“We are still finding bits and pieces all over the place, there is literally a continuous stream.
“And obviously, because the place was so clean, it was easily noticed.”
