International Coastal Clean-Up Day

Coordinators, sponsors and volunteers who participated in the 2015 International Coastal Clean-Up Day on September 18, described the event as the best ever since South Africa officially became part of the biggest volunteer effort for ocean health in 1996.

This annual event was initiated by the Ocean Conservancy in 1986 and has grown with more than 100 countries participating in cleaning up their coastal areas.

According to John Kieser, sustainability manager at Plastics SA and coordinator of the event in the three Cape Provinces, good weather on the day resulted in more volunteers participating than was originally expected, allowing them to cover more distances along the coastlines and collecting more litter than in previous years.

“In the 19 years of coordinating the International Coastal Clean-Up in the three Cape Provinces, I have never experienced a clean-up like the one on Saturday this year.  We had an incredible turnout of people that wanted to make a difference to South Africa’s coastline.  The dedication to picking up mainly small items was overwhelming and we collected more micro waste than larger pieces of litter on the beaches. The comradery and positivity will always stay with me”, said Kieser.

Approximately 47 tons of litter were removed along 380 kilometres of coastline, of which 17 kilometres were rivers and waterways, and 5 square kilometres were in underwater areas.

The main sponsors included the Plastics SA Sustainability Council (PETCO, POLYCO. SAVA, PSPC), Pick n Pay, Tuffy, Garbie, National Recycling Forum, Glass Recycling Company, ROSE Foundation, Collect-a-Can, Paper Recycling Association of SA, Tetrapak, KZN Wildlife and Kelpak, which ensured that each volunteer received a collection bag, gloves and data sheets to record the most prevalent pollutants that were picked up on the day.