From dirty river water to fresh vegetables: Langrug garden gives residents hope

What was once dirty river water flowing through Langrug is now helping grow carrots, onions, beetroot, spinach, sweet potatoes and peppers for people in the community.

For Bongiwe Buyambo, who lives in the informal settlement near Stellenbosch, the vegetable garden at the UCT Water Hub has given her a chance to reconnect with something she used to do in the Eastern Cape: growing and eating fresh vegetables.

The garden forms part of a University of Cape Town project that treats polluted water from the Stiebeuel River using a nature-based filtration system before some of it is used to irrigate the vegetables.

Buyambo said she was drawn to the project after seeing it being started in the Langrug community.

“We started in February by making the beds,” said Buyambo.

“At first, I wasn’t 100% sure about the site, but now that we have started, I can see that it’s something good because many people benefit from what we are doing. It has helped a lot of people, and that’s why I wanted to take part. It allows us to give back to the community.”

The garden beds are made using layers of natural materials, including wood from trees, compost mixed with sand, biochar and mulch. The vegetables are then planted and irrigated with treated water from the river.

Buyambo said seeing polluted water being treated and reused was something she had never experienced before.

“It was something that stood out for me because I never thought the dirty water that’s coming up from the village could be treated and be clean,” she said.

The project currently treats between 36,000 and 50,000 litres of water a day.

However, Prof Kevin Winter, one of the researchers behind the Water Hub, cautioned that it is still early days and the project should not yet be seen as having transformed the wider community.

“The impact is really more on the workers who are employed at the moment to grow the vegetables,” said Winter.

There have been a couple of harvests since February, with some of the vegetables going to a local soup kitchen in the informal settlement.

Winter said the project had so far made a small contribution of about 10 to 12 boxes of vegetables to the soup kitchen.

“It’s quite a long way to go before we can really see a significant or measurable impact,” he said.

When I worked as a behavioural nurse, we were taught the importance of giving back to the community. Since coming to the Water Hub, I have come to fully understand what giving back to the community really means

—  Bongiwe Buyambo, a resident of the informal settlement

But for Buyambo, the impact is already personal. She said working in the garden had helped her return to the healthy lifestyle she knew growing up.

“I lived in the Eastern Cape, so [there], we’re used to eating fresh vegetables from the garden. When I came here in Cape Town, I thought that it wouldn’t be possible,” she said.

“But now I realise that working here at the Water Hub has helped me a lot in regaining myself and regaining what we grew up doing and eating.”

The vegetables are also giving Buyambo a sense of purpose because she knows some of what she helps grow ends up feeding children in the community.

“It means a lot to help people in the community, especially when we see children lining up for food. It means a lot seeing the children and knowing that I played a part in helping them. I tried to help wherever I could,” she said.

She said the experience had also changed how she understood the idea of giving back to her community.

“When I worked as a behavioural nurse, we were taught the importance of giving back to the community. Since coming to the Water Hub, I have come to fully understand what giving back to the community really means,” she said.

The Water Hub was established in 2018 at an abandoned wastewater site in Langrug, where old drying beds were turned into filtration cells.

The system uses solar power to pump polluted river water through the cells, where it slowly passes through different layers over several days.

Large stones, biochar, smaller stones and sand work together with bacteria and other microorganisms to remove pollutants from the water.

Winter said the system is designed around the slow movement of water through the biofilters, where microorganisms help absorb and convert pollutants. A final sand filter then provides another level of filtration.

The treated water is not intended for drinking, but researchers say it can now be used for irrigation after the system reduced bacteria and pathogens to suitable levels.

About 3,000 litres of the treated water is currently held back for use in food-producing gardens, while most of the treated water is released back into the river.

Winter said the Water Hub is primarily a research site and is being used to build knowledge that can be shared with municipalities and other universities.

The project is also attracting interest from farmers, residents, ratepayers, students and officials, including people from the department of water and sanitation.

For now, the researchers say there is still a long way to go before the project can demonstrate a large-scale social impact.

However, the hope is that the lessons from Langrug could eventually help other communities facing water shortages, pollution and food insecurity.

For Buyambo, the project already offers a simple lesson: water that once looked unusable can, with the right treatment, help put food on people’s tables.