Clean-up crusade from park to promenade

This series focuses on people who are making a

difference in their

communities. If you know of someone who is a change-maker in your society (KZN), e-mail:

[email protected] with their details.

DURBAN - At breakfast and at lunchtime, she would turn up at one of the town’s diners and be given a meal. She said she did not feel she was begging. She was supplying a service to their town, and these meals and regular cups of coffee were the town folks’ opportunity to contribute to her crusade.

Durban’s Shirley Schieffer could in some ways be likened to her American counterpart. However, Schieffer is a resident at the upmarket Eden Roc Retirement Complex on the beachfront. She does not need the largesse of others to survive. She need not venture outside her comfort zone, but could sit in the lounge or on the verandah, socialising, playing cards, drinking tea. Instead, she squares her shoulders, and sets off to clean up the litter on the streets, promenade and in nearby Carpendale Park two or three times a day.

While she feels the Durban municipality does a good job, she is playing her own tiny part to better her surroundings.

What drives her? Does she do it out of civic duty? Schieffer, who will be turning 82 at the end of March, is driven by something much simpler - a need to live in a clean, rubbish-free environment of which she can be proud and which will showcase her tiny “patch” to visitors to the beachfront in a better light.

Straight after breakfast, Schieffer hits the road. “When I spot any unsightly rubbish, I pick it up in my hands and drop it in the nearest rubbish bin. This is my exercise. Walking, bending, stretching. It can only do me good.” Invariably she comes across discarded polystyrene food containers, beer and cooldrink bottles, plastic bags, sheets of newspaper, sweet papers and cigarette cartons.

Her first stop is the promenade opposite the Eden Roc, where vendors ply their trade. Having dealt with anything which mars the landscape there, she makes her way towards the former snake park, then scours the fence line in front of the dune forest, where many items get trapped. “Sometimes I see a small animal or a monkey there, and it’s not nice to view them against rubbish,” she explains.

Often people walking towards her, and seeing what she is doing, bend to pick up litter which they then hand to her. “If there is a bin nearby, I ask them to put it in the bin, rather than give it to me. Sometimes little kids bring me their contribution. I enjoy this interaction with children. Sometimes their mothers say ‘Well done!’ to both me and their kids.”

Schieffer says that even as a teenager, living in Germiston, where she attended Germiston Girls High School, she felt compelled to pick up litter. “I just can’t see rubbish lying around. Many people throw down things even if there is a bin nearby.”

Once a month she used to visit her grandmother in Pretoria. “She lived in a house with extensive grounds, so I cleaned up the garden on every visit. My parents never really encouraged me to pick up litter. They just took it for granted,” she recalls. “If they went walking with me, they would also pick up, but when they were alone, would walk past any rubbish.”

Schieffer has been living at the Eden Roc for three years and is a well-known figure on the streets. Many residents in the area remark on her dedication.

Even in the height of summer she can be spotted, cap on head, arms sunburned, sometimes with perspiration trickling off her face, going about her task.

“I never look back after cleaning an area,” she confesses. “I don’t want to see if people have instantly thrown down things. I know I can pick it up tomorrow.

"I just want the area to look neat. It would be great if it could be pristine. I know it’s not, but I am working towards that,” she said, as her eyes dart in all directions, ready to pounce on any offending litter.

SUNDAY TRIBUNE