Gauteng, South Africa: Large volumes of raw sewage are also dumped straight into the Hennops from illegal housing along its banks. The river is also a repository for “massive plastic pollution”, which is being washed downstream. The Hennops River Valley is a provincial nature reserve for critical biodiversity.
“Now we’ve got this river of death running through here. All of the animals are drinking this water and are also getting affected, so it’s actually a massive ecological impact. The river is about 100km long coming from Tembisa; it’s literally killing everything along that route.”
The day in early September when Coert Steynberg became severely ill after accidentally ingesting water from the sewage-polluted Hennops River had started out like any other…
