Volunteers clean up metro’s beaches

More than 1000 volunteers banded together in Nelson Mandela Bay at the weekend to pick up 17.5 tons of rubbish washed up on the beach from Woody Cape in the east to Maitland River in the west.

Nelson Mandela Bay municipal conservation officer Clyde Scott said yesterday that 1350 volunteers affiliated to NGOs, institutions, companies, parastatals, schools, clubs and the municipality had taken part in the International Coastal Clean-up Day programme. “I think it was a major achievement. Hopefully, next year there will be even more buy-in and we can do even better.”

Asked about the concern – raised by one volunteer, Pierrelouis Lemercier, of Transition Network – that the annual clean-up is making no sustainable difference because the state of the beaches is just as bad every year – Scott said new legislation should soon start making a difference in this regard.

The new Coastal Management Act specifies that it is illegal for fishermen to discard refuse off boats, and the metro’s even newer Coastal Protection Unit will be tackling this issue, and should soon start to make a difference, he said.

Lemercier, part of the team that cleaned up Bushy Park, said he felt Transnet, as the agency in charge of the Port Elizabeth harbour, should also help with this task.

He also called for more involvement from the municipality, and for more recycling companies to get involved to maximise the potential value of the rubbish, and to aid the eco-message behind the programme.

Asked about this, Scott said he was pleased with what had been accomplished, but he agreed there was room for improvement.

Ocean Messengers founder Rainer Schimpf, who was part of the SANParks team that cleaned up the Woody Cape area, said he was disappointed that the recycling aspect was not more clearly communicated and carried out.

“We collected 40 bags with items for recycling but in the end it seems they just went to the Addo landfill. So we did a good job – but we did not finish the process. We missed out on the learning curve.”

Asked about this, Scott said blue and red bags from Khanya Hygiene Services had been distributed to the teams with instructions to put plastic into the blue bags and everything else into the red bags.

“This separation idea worked well with some teams, but not so well with others. The material is still being assessed, but my understanding is that only about 350kg of recyclables has been identified so far.” There were also a number of crayfish traps that the Woody Cape team picked up which had been kept aside and would be recycled, he said.

Collette Molenaar, of Khanya, said the company had become involved to highlight the need to relieve pressure on landfills. She agreed there had been “teething problems” with the recycling link-up.

“There were a lot of kids involved and perhaps some of the sorting got mixed up in their eagerness and enthusiasm.”

A lot of the recyclables were also caked with sand, she noted.

(This story is courtesy of The Herald. Used with permission.)