LESSON: Grade 9 pupils from three Makhanda schools - St Andrew’s College, Diocesan School for Girls and Ikamva Lesizwe - spent the following morning picking up waste along the west bank of the Kariega estuary.
From Kleinemonde to Klipfontein, East Beach to Ekuphumleni, the Sunshine Coast came together on Saturday to show their love for their environment. On International Coastal Cleanup Day, annually on the third Saturday of September, litter is collected all round the world, counted and recorded. The data is sent to a central global database where it is analysed so solutions can be identified.
Last weekend, groups of families and friends took to the beaches of Kleinemonde and Port Alfred to pick up trash – mostly plastic – left by us humans. Scientists Judy Mann-Lang and Bruce Mann drove efforts in the Ndlambe coastline’s eastern reaches where the Seafield Secrets marine education project has been evolving. Port Alfred resident Sue Gordon sent us photos of families going out to clean up East Beach on their own initiative.
No fewer than 15 teams hit the ground between Kasouga and Cannon Rocks, coordinated by volunteer at the Kenton Tourism office, Ashleigh Moore.
Integral to the weekend’s efforts in that area was Bushman’s Recycling, whose energetic team under manager Akhona ‘Kellis’ Gqupu spent their morning picking up bags of collected waste from designated spots. The count (number of filled black plastic bags) from team leaders at the end of the day was as follows:
Marselle: 65
Merry Hill (alongside the R343): 30 – “plus two old TVs and plastic pipe pieces of asbestos roofing etc”
Cannon Rocks: 30
Boknes to Cannon Rocks: 12
Woody Cape Bush area: 5
Bush area behind Cannon Rocks: 6
Road between Boknes and Cannon Rocks entrance: 8
On the Bushmans River: 3
Boknesstrand: 10
There were refreshments and boerie rolls for the teams at Round Table Kenton’s Middle Beach clubhouse. Later, Ocean, by David Attenborough, was screened n the Boesmansriviermond Town Hall.
The work of Bushman’s Recycling had only just begun though. Co-founder Susan Corner said afterwards, “The recycling team will start going through all of the bags on Monday, and pulling out all recyclable material to minimise the volume that goes to landfill.”
On Tuesday she said, “The recycling centre have been going through the bags and are only about 50% done. It appears so far that the recyclables/rubbish split is about 70/30. The three sample bags were collected today and we are going to be going through them tomorrow and doing a photographic flat lay showing a sample of what was collected.”
In a separate effort, 31 Grade 9 pupils from three Makhanda schools – St Andrew’s College, Diocesan School for Girls and Ikamva Lesizwe – spent the following morning picking up waste along the west bank of the Kariega estuary. The project was a combined Marine Sciences, Community Engagement and Environmental Sustainability effort, and looked to build bridges between pupils from different schools, as well as picking up waste from the salt marshes, mudflats and river banks from the R72 bridge up to Mullins camp. The waste gathered was sorted and counted so that it could be added to the global International Coastal Cleanup Day database.
Why is important to collect litter from our coastline?
World-wide only 10-13% of plastic items are recycled. Plastic does not biodegrade (decompose into a natural substance like soil,) it degrades (breaks up) into microplastics over time. These microplastics stay in the environment and even enter our bodies through food, water and air. Our ability to cope with plastic waste is already overwhelmed. Less than 10% of the over NINE BILLION TONNES of plastic the world has produced has been recycled.
So, while recycling helps to ease the problem a bit, we need to use less plastic. And we need to get it out of the environment – and this is why our daily litter collections are SO important. Many of us do regularly pick up litter off our beaches and we are proud of the beautiful beaches we live near. During International Coastal Cleanup, held on the third Saturday of September each year, litter is collected all round the world, counted and recorded. The data is sent to a central global database where trash is analysed so solutions can be identified. – Judy Mann-Lang, executive strategic projects at the Two Oceans Aquarium Foundation and Senior Research Associate at the Department of Icthyology and Fisheries Science at Rhodes University.
This article was first published in Talk of the Town, September 25, 2025. The newspaper serving the communities of Ndlambe and the Sunshine Coast, with a weekly wrap of Makhanda news, is available at stores from early on Thursdays
