On Saturday morning, in the middle of a very heavy rainstorm, 70 members of the African Reclaimers Organization came to Brixton to do a major cleanup with our community. Despite the absolutely terrible weather, the group collected 500 bags of rubbish, cleared six storm water drains, and cleaned up several major dumping sites around the suburb.

Members of the African Reclaimers Organization walk through Brixton at the beginning of Saturday’s community cleanup.

Heading out into the rain as the Brixton Tower looms in the mist.

A Brixton resident pulls trash from a drain.

I didn’t take many photos, unfortunately, because it really began to pour — both my camera and I were soaked. But I want to do a quick post anyway, mainly to thank the African Reclaimers Organization (also known as ARO, pronounced “arrow”), a group that deserves a longer blog post of its own sometime in the very near future.

Luyanda Hlatshwayo, leader of ARO, addresses the group before the cleanup.

ARO is a membership-based organization made up of people who sort, collect, and sell recyclable materials gathered from the streets of Joburg. If you live in Joburg, you most likely see reclaimers at work every day, sorting through rubbish bins and hauling impossibly large trolleys for miles among the city’s suburban areas, landfills, and recycling centers. Brixton was the first Joburg suburb to formalize a relationship with ARO, and this cleanup was a way of recognizing and cementing the bond between Brixton and the African Reclaimers.

The rain pours down as people clean up trash in Brixton.

Hats off to everyone in this photo — you’re all heroes. Thanks especially to Sophia Welz (on the right in the Brixton t-shirt) for organizing Saturday’s cleanup with the reclaimers.

The few pictures I took don’t tell the full story because they don’t show how much rubbish the team actually picked up. Illegal dumping and littering are HUGE challenges in Brixton, as in many (most) other parts of Joburg, and the city’s formal waste collection services aren’t coming close to managing the problem alone. And the challenges are only going to grow; Joburg’s landfills are nearing capacity and at risk of having to close for lack of space. (One major landfill has already closed.)

As Joburgers, our health and wellbeing depends, quite literally, on the African Reclaimers. I’m grateful to them for coming to Brixton in the rain and I hereby make it one of my New Years resolutions to write more about them in 2026.