Founder of non-profit Litter4Tokens, former Ballito resident Clare Swithenbank-Bowman has received two international Stevie Awards for Women in Business.

The awards ceremony was held on December 9 via a virtual ceremony.

The Stevie Awards is considered the world’s premier business awards and were introduced in 2002 to honour and generate public recognition for the achievements by professionals and businesses worldwide.

Clare received the awards in recognition of her environmental contributions through Litter4Tokens, which seeks to empower, feed and educate communities on conservation.

The goal of the organisation is also to prevent plastic from ending up in our oceans.

This is often done through innovative beach clean-up tools, which remove harmful microplastics such as nurdles.

One of the tools includes the mermaid tear-catcher, a frisbee-like sift which separates sand from nurdles (micro plastics).

“It is truly an honour to be a recipient of such prestigious awards,” said Clare, who took home the silver awards for ‘Woman of the Year – Government or Non-Profit’ and ‘Female Innovator of the Year – Government or Non-Profit’ categories for the innovative Mermaid Tear Catchers.

“Due to the high unemployment rate and concern about dumping plastic and litter into our rivers, I came up with the Litter4Tokens idea in 2015.

“Litter4tokens creates the circular economy, and we are working tirelessly for funding to keep our token shops full, as we can’t keep up with all the bags of litter the communities are bringing in.”

Since the launch, Litter4Tokens has prevented more than 528 000 bags of litter from reaching the ocean, as well as feeding more than 156 000 people in remote communities across South Africa.

To find out more about the exciting work being done by Litter4Tokens, or to order a Mermaid Tear Catcher, visit www.litter4tokens.co.za.