Suing the State to Save the Vaal River

Save the Vaal Environment (SAVE) is a community-led non-profit that has fought pollution of the 1,120km Vaal River since the 1990s, using public pressure and High Court litigation whenever polluters and municipalities ignore the law. Its record includes a 1999 Supreme Court of Appeal win against a mining license and, in 2023, a Johannesburg High Court order forcing national ministers to act after the collapse of Emfuleni municipality's wastewater system was sending roughly 170 million litres of raw or partially treated sewage into the Vaal and its tributaries every day. SAVE also organizes hands-on cleanup campaigns, including volunteer extraction teams that pulled more than 150,000 cubic metres of invasive water lettuce out of the river after an outbreak the group first flagged to authorities in 2022.