Margate Beach, September 8 – CCBSA staff tackle pollution on beaches
Beginning this Friday, 8 September, Coca-Cola Beverages South Africa (CCBSA) will be rolling up their plastic gloves as they tackle plastic and other pollution at beaches in Margate, Durban, Richards Bay, East London, Port Elizabeth, and George.
This forms part of the Coastal Clean-up project which was established by the Ocean Conservancy, a non-profit organisation based in the USA in 1989, with the aim to clean up beaches and help protect marine life. The initiative soon spread and today the International Coastal Clean-up takes place around the world on the third Saturday of September each year.
Last year CCBSA Coastal collected a total of 616 bags of waste were collected. All the recyclable material from this collection was donated to a recycling buy-back Centre.
However, the reasons for beach clean-ups are not just about keeping our beaches beautiful, they are also about saving our precious oceans.
“This beach clean-up is a chance for our employees to make a tangible difference to the environments in which they work, live, and play,” said Nolundi Mzimba, Public Affairs and Communications Manager for CCBSA Coastal division.
“It’s also a chance for our staff to engage with learners that take part in the Schools Recycling Programme, which is a proud initiative of CCBSA. The Schools Recycling Programme aims to create a generation of South Africans committed to ensuring that discarded waste does not end up as litter in the oceans, or as waste in a nearby landfill site. Through the programme learners in various regions are encouraged to reduce, reuse and ultimately, recycle their litter and rubbish in order to create cleaner communities.
“We’ve also found at previous clean-ups that members of the public have pitched in to help us,” said Mzimba.
Cleaning up plastic is a way to contribute to reducing the problem of post-consumer plastic waste in our oceans.