About
Hlanzekile River & Ocean Cleaning
Vision
Plastic-free rivers & Empowered Communities
Plastic waste is a major environmental issue, accumulating for hundreds to thousands of years without decomposing. It clogs waterways, endangers wildlife, and disrupts entire ecosystems. With plastic having the ability to leach harmful chemicals into the water. These chemicals can contaminate the water supply, affecting both aquatic life and human populations that rely on the river for drinking water and agriculture. We need to act immediately.
Vision
To clean and maintain rivers, through river clean-ups, educating communities and waste management
We are a non-profit organisation that is passionate about cleaning rivers. We are equally passionate about educating communities about how dangerous pollution, more especially plastic pollution is to them and the environment, through educational workshops to encourage them to continue to keep their rivers clean.
Founder
Floyd Nyai
Born out of the deep concern of the uncleanliness and gross neglect of Braamfontein Spruit River, Floyd Nyai, took it upon himself to form Hlanzekile River and Ocean Cleaning, a fully self-funded non-profit organisation, dedicated to cleaning the Braamfontein Spruit River and other bodies of water at large. This concern sprouted from Nyai always seeing the same green plastic trapped under a rock in the Braamfontein Spruit River everyday on his way to work, which made him realise that if he doesn’t make efforts to clean the river, nobody will.
Floyd spent a significant amount of his career in the cleaning industry, so it is no surprise that this would be the way he chose to make a meaningful contribution to his community, and more especially his country. “ Years of working in some of the most disadvantaged areas exposed me to a grave and escalating problem - waste management, littering, and illegal dumping. It was disheartening to see how a substantial amount of this waste, often plastic, ended up in rivers, and ultimately, oceans. The realisation that this environmental crisis was affecting not only nature, but also the livelihoods of countless South Africans was impossible to ignore. ” Nyai recalls.