With the picnic basket and cooler box packed, the That’s Cape Town team embarked on a trip to explore one of the most beautiful and fascinating parks in Cape Town over the weekend — the Green Point Park and Biodiversity Gardens which is situated in Green Point next to the Cape Town stadium.

Upon arrival, while taking a long slow walk through the park we noticed all the amazing facilities available. These include an outdoor gym, a section perfect for cyclists, a learning park for functions (business or pleasure), clean toilets, drinking fountains and a cordoned off play park for the little ones which is completely safe. Not only is the Green Point Park a beautiful setting for people of all ages, it is very educational as well.

Educational boards can be found clearly marked throughout the garden. These boards provide useful information about the wildlife and vegetation found in the garden.

The lovely picnic tables, benches and green grass are perfect spots to enjoy breakfast, brunch, lunch, picnics and even birthday parties.

Entrance to the park is free and open to everyone, however there are a few rules (by the City of Cape Town) which should be adhered to at all times:

The Green Point Park is open every day from 07:00 until 19:00.

Picnics are permitted

Swimming, skateboarding, fires, braais, camping, loud music, flower picking and alcohol are not permitted

Dogs are welcome in the park, provided that they are on a lead and owners pick up and dispose of their excrement. Dogs are not allowed in the biodiversity garden

Parking is available near the entrances on the corner of Beach/Vlei Roads; on Bill Peters Drive (near the entrance to the Virgin Active gym); and on Bay Road (near the Mouille Point lighthouse).

There are also numerous pedestrian links to surrounding areas 

The park has an outdoor gym and play park

Every inch of this magnificent landscape should be explored and absorbed, so be sure to spend an entire day there when visiting. Your children will love it.

Recycle Swop Shop has been operating since February this year. They are a community project working into DuNoon informal settlement in Cape Town. Their aim is social upliftment and education, and they are doing this by implementing a rewards-based recycling scheme.

The basics of the project are: people from DuNoon collect recyclable goods from their homes, neighbours and surrounding streets. The recycling is brought to Recycle Swop Shop where the bags are weighed and exchanged for tokens. With the tokens, people are able to ‘buy’ from the Shop, which is stocked with donated daily supplies like toiletries; basic groceries and clothes.

In a community where unemployment and poverty is the root cause of a number of other problems, giving people the opportunity to provide basic necessities for their families goes a long way to boosting morale and imparting hope.

It has been difficult to get the project up-and-running, mostly due to a lack of funding and donations. But the core group of volunteers are passionate and see themselves as serving a community in great need.

Just recently, the efforts of Recycle Swop Shop were noticed by Cape Town International Airport (CTIA).  Swop shop was nominated (along with roughly 350 other organisations) to be part of the CTIA Flagship Initiative. This initiative helps organisations by offering support and building relationships over three to five years, with a view to help the organisation become self-sustainable. Recycle Swop Shop was chosen to be one of the four recipients of this year’s Flagship Initiative.

This kind of recognition and support is huge for the Recycle Swop Shop project. They will now have the funds to keep the shop well-stocked; and set systems in place to make sure operations run seamlessly each week. When one model is running successfully, it will be replicated in other informal settlements like Khayelitsha; Joe Slovo; and Nyanga.

Watch this space… This project is going places – and caring for the poor along the way.

Jonathan & Maria (Recycle Swop Shop) with Gareth (CTIA)

Find Recycle Swop Shop on Facebook here, and follow them on Twitter – @swopshop_ct.

The Fountains Hotel in the Cape Town CBD has recently installed waterless urinals in an effort to save water. The hotel is part of the Leisure Hotels Group which has strict green policies in all of its hotels.

Before you turn your nose up from reading about waterless urinals you may want to consider the following:

“These valves require absolutely no water and feature an airtight seal and deodorising dome to keep toilets completely odourless without wasting water.”

“The average urinal flush uses around 2 ℓ of water each time it is used. Retrofitting existing buildings or fitting new buildings with a water-free system has the potential to save South Africa billions of litres of water each year,” states Sanitree, the company responsible for this product on their website.

The urinals were installed at the Fountains Hotel last week. Their use will save up to 200 000 litres of water per urinal every year. They have the ability to save an office one million litres of water per year.

The product is also Proudly South African; designed and manufactured in Cape Town. AT a cost of only R260 per urinal, businesses and homes around Cape Town can save themselves enormous water costs, and save the earth some of its most important resource.

Visit www.sannitree.co.za for more information.