Rehabilitating the Hennops river and Centurion Lake won’t be a quick fix and it will take several years to restore them to their original state.

This is according to metro spokesperson Lindela Mashigo, who said there were plans to rehabilitate the rivers.

However, this would take several years to reverse the damage caused by upstream pollution.

Hennops river is considered one of our most polluted rivers.

There are huge plastic and styrofoam islands lower down in the river, one over 100 meters long and so tightly packed that one can walk over it. About 300 bags of rubbish were removed from the polluted waters in September.

Hundreds of residents helped activists clean the banks of the river near the river.

Mashigo said R28.6 million had been earmarked for the first phase of the rehabilitation of the stretch of the Hennops River between the Gerhard Street bridge and Lenchen North Road bridge.

Centurion Lake also forms part of a broader process to rehabilitate the Hennops River and it would not be resuscitated as a waterfront again.

“The aim of the rehabilitation process is not to restore the waterfront but rather to restore the river to its natural flow as far as humanly possible.”