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Thousand plus hours dedicated to eliminate ‘trash blindness’

03 July 2019 | Story Leonie Bolleurs

KovsiesCare - Clean Up Read More — Tsietsi Ngobese, through the Wesolve4x Cleaning My Planet Campaign, motivated citizens to collectively fill over 23 000 refuse bags to date.

The mission: To collectively fill 20 million refuse bags every Saturday with the help of 20 million people who are cleaning their own communities and our planet for an hour. The message: My planet, my responsibility.

The mission and message that the Wesolve4x Cleaning My Planet Campaign wants to convey, is based on a simple premise: Get community members to donate one hour of their time to cleaning duties every Saturday for the next 20 years until 2039. At the same time provide a continuous educational programme about waste management to the general public and to schools in order to empower them to take responsibility.

Address trash blindness

Tsietsi Ngobese, Chief Executive Officer of this initiative and BSc Actuarial Science graduate, says he understands the transformative power of education and the role it plays in transforming diverse communities. Through outreach programmes in our community and schools, we are slowly eliminating generational trash blindness. We also tackle some of the social determinants of health by encouraging healthy living conditions within our communities through good waste management and recycling.

It is important for Tsietsi to add value to society. He believes that the Wesolve4x Generation will transform the world for the better through education and empowering all citizens.

The campaign – officially endorsed by Miss Earth South Africa, Catherine Constantinides – was launched on the UFS Bloemfontein Campus as well as the Abram Hlope Primary School in Katlehong on 4 May 2019.

“We want to promote the benefits of a clean and healthy environment for future generations,” said Tsietsi.

Since their inception, the group has collectively filled over 23 000 refuse bags with the help of active citizens.

Challenge accepted

When former lecturer, Jan Blomerus, once challenged his Actuarial students to protect the environment in order to decrease the mortality rate (from natural disasters because of the effect of climate change), Tsietsi accepted the challenge. “By inspiring excellence and transforming lives, the UFS plays an important role; I started to believe that I can address societal challenges in the communities I am an integral part of,” he said.

When Tsietsi saw trash piling up everywhere and children playing at illegal dumping sites, he became concerned about the health risk to society. He believes the dumping area is contaminating the air and water around the dumping site.

“I had to be part of the solution to start cleaning up, and most importantly, educating myself and others to continuously take responsibility for our own waste and change our thinking about littering. This is a generational issue and needs a generational approach to unlearn all habits of littering,” Tsietsi pointed out.

As part of his vision, Tsietsi plans to reduce the waste taken to landfill sites and to increase that which is taken directly from households to recycling plants. He also wants to encourage people to find creative ways of converting what has previously been wasted into something useful. “This action can encourage individuals to generate an income from waste,” he said.

Take action

Tsietsi invites all members of the Mangaung community to get involved in the project. This is your opportunity to make a difference on Mandela Day. You can;
• provide sponsorship for educational content on effective waste management, economic opportunities, and health issues to the general public and to schools;
• provide refuse bags, plastic gloves or hand-washing soap (used by community members in every clean-up session);
• join in a collective effort to clean your community by meeting at designated schools or any designated community assembly point on a Saturday (contact 011 307 2005 or info@wesolve4x.com for more information).

News Archive

Research into surrogate milk important to wildlife conservation

2017-05-08

Prof Gary Osthoff from the UFS Department of
Microbial, Biochemical and Food Biotechnology,
will soon work on a milk formula for elephants.
Photo: Supplied

Research is being done at the University of the Free State (UFS) to analyse and synthetically imitate the unique milk of various wildlife species. This research is not only of scientific value, but also serves the conservation of South Africa’s wildlife species. At the forefront of this research is Prof Garry Osthoff from the Department of Microbial, Biochemical and Food Biotechnology.

Orphaned rhino calf pulled through with surrogate milk
“There is still a lot of research to be done. Naturally the research is of scientific importance, but with surrogate milk having the same composition as the mother’s milk of a specific species, orphaned calves or cubs of that species could be pulled through during a difficult time of weaning. Bearing in mind that exotic animals fetch thousands and even millions of rands at auctions, it goes without saying a game farmer will do everything possible to provide only the best nourishment to such an orphaned animal. In such a case, synthetically-manufactured milk would be the right choice,” says Prof Osthoff.

The fruits of his research were recently demonstrated in Germany when a rhino calf was left orphaned in the Leipzig Zoo. Prof Osthoff’s article: “Milk composition of a free-ranging white rhinoceros during late lactation” was used as a directive for applying surrogate milk for horse foals (which is already commercially available), since the composition of horse and rhino milk largely corresponds. The surrogate milk was used with great success and the rhino calf is flourishing. He mentions that such an orphan is often given the wrong nourishment with the best intentions, resulting in the starvation of the animal despite the amount of cow’s milk it devours.

With surrogate milk having the same
composition as the mother’s milk of a
specific species, orphaned calves or
cubs of that species could be pulled
through during the difficult time
of weaning.

Milk formula for baby elephants in the pipeline
With baby elephants left orphaned due to the increase in elephant poaching for their ivory, several attempts have been made to create a milk formula in order to feed these elephants. To date, many elephants have died in captivity from side effects such as diarrhoea as a result of the surrogate formula which they were fed.

Prof Osthoff recently received a consignment of frozen milk which he, together with researchers from Zimbabwe, will use to work on a milk formula for elephants. They are studying the milk in a full lactation period of two years. During lactation, the composition of the milk changes to such an extent that a single surrogate formula will not be sufficient. Four different formulas should probably be designed.

Prof Osthoff says that of the different species he has researched, elephants are the most interesting and deviate most from the known species.

Although his research to develop surrogate milk is adding much value to the wildlife industry, and although he finds this part of his work very exciting, his research focus is on food science and nutrition. “What is currently authentic in milk research is the study of the fat globules with content, the structure and composition of the casein micelle, and the prebiotic sugars. The knowledge which is gained helps to improve the processing, development of new food products, and development of food products for health purposes,” says Prof Osthoff.

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