Inkwazi Isu

Education, Innovation and Renewal: Keeping Durban’s Rivers and Beaches Clean

In the South African city of Durban, a unique collaboration between government, industry, and civil society is on track to making a serious dent into the city's plastic pollution problem.

In a country where waste management is hindered by limited and unequally distributed resources, the Inkwazi Isu project brings the public and private sectors together in a coordinated effort to divert plastic waste from the Amazimtoti and eZimbokodweni river catchment areas. The four-year Inkwazi Isu programme funds upgrades to sorting and aggregation facilities, community education, the establishment of an innovation hub, as well as beach and river clean-ups.

While seemingly endless stretches of golden sand give the laid-back coastal city a reputation as "South Africa's playground", twice in the past three years, flash floods have deposited tonnes of plastic waste along its coastline. It was this recurring disaster that galvanised collaboration and the launch of Inkwazi Isu in June 2022. Inkwazi Isu has fostered collaboration between various stakeholders to keep Durban’s beaches clean. Rather than focusing only on cleaning up after the fact, the aim was to prevent plastic waste from getting into the environment in the first place.

In 2023 with Alliance funding, the project completed the upgrade of seven waste sorting and aggregation sites. Six more site upgrades are in progress, set to be completed in July 2024, which will further increase the city's capacity to sort and recycle plastic waste. The upgraded sites will be fed by waste collected from landfills, dumpsites, households, and schools, through the efforts of municipal waste workers — or bought from waste pickers.

Over a thousand community volunteers also take part in regular clean-up campaigns along rivers and beaches, recovering tonnes of waste and restoring environments. The effort is supported by Inkwazi Isu's waste ambassadors, who help raise awareness around separating waste and preventing plastic waste leakage.

This builds on the ambassadors' work in their communities. Educational programmes about how to identify and sort plastic waste have been conducted in 50 schools, encouraging students to collect their plastic waste from home. Today, these collection programmes contribute some 100 tonnes of plastic waste for recycling every month.

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