Sewage leaks put South Africa’s freshwater at risk: how citizen scientists are helping clean up

Sewage leaks put South Africa’s freshwater at risk: how citizen scientists are helping clean up

By Jim Taylor, University of KwaZulu-Natal and Mark Graham, University of KwaZulu-Natal Across South Africa, sewage systems are leaking and contaminating the country’s freshwater. Involving the affected communities can help prevent this pollution hazard, as a group of 15 citizen scientists in KwaZulu-Natal province have shown. Their community water monitoring programme, working with municipal authorities, has managed to prevent raw sewage from flooding into rivers. The young, unemployed […]

March 15, 2024 36

Environment

Get rid of leaf blowers: they pollute and their purpose is dubious

The most infuriating feature of my walk up to my office every morning is neither the distance nor the steep hill; it is the daily presence of a leaf blower. Never has a machine been so pointless, wasteful and widely disliked, and yet so widely used. There are many reasons to hate leaf blowers. They are loud and their sole purpose is to over-manicure nature. They disperse debris rather […]

December 14, 2023 5