foul-smelling sewage water under the bridge.

Siyani Hlungwane

Sewage has affected our air quality on daily basis, we cannot breath fresh air because of the bad smell. When you enter Snake Park you will pass a bridge it has been there since our community was established. There is dirty water running under the bridge it is very smelly because people throw their rubbish under the bridge. The infrastructure of the bridge is also not safe they have been criminal cases whereby they have found stillborns under the bridge, this is because it is not fenced and they don’t clean the rubbish that is thrown in the wetlands.

This is very harmful, especially to people who are living close to the bridge. Sewage and wastewater contain bacteria, fungi, parasites, and viruses that can cause intestinal, lung, and other infections. Bacteria may cause diarrhea, fever, cramps, and sometimes vomiting, headache, weakness, or loss of appetite. Every day school kids pass that bridge when they go to school. When it is raining it is not safe for them to use it because the sewage water becomes too much and they can even fall into the sewage stream

The community and municipality are responsible for this smell. The solution for this is the ward council must deploy contractors to spray chemicals to stop this smell, the community must stop throwing garbage and dead animal into the water to avoid the smell and the ward council must hire patrols to stop people from disposing of harmful things in the stream. we have to take care of our environment so that it is healthy and safe.